I played baseball full time!

B A S E B A L L , A N Y O N E ?

When I was a kid, everyone I knew had a baseball bat, glove and ball. No vacant lot was safe from the sudden onslaught of a “gang” intent on a pick-up game of baseball. We would no sooner finish one game than start another, on a Saturday or Sunday. School days, a game started immediately after we got home, dropped off notebooks and grabbed out gear, racing out the door to meet at the “field”. It may well have been a future home site, or an unfenced part of a larger property, so long as we could establish “bases” and a “home plate”, it was a baseball field to us. Grown-ups never intruded to run us off, or warn us about breaking something; it was a given that we had every right to use any vacant land in happy pursuit of the National Pastime. So long as we were home by dinner, we were free to “play ball!”

All those interested in playing gathered in a circle; captains of the teams were selected, sometimes by natural selection, sometimes by “turn”. Nobody was left out, or left on the bench. Those weaker players might be the last to be picked, and end up playing deep right field, but in true American spirit, everybody played! If there were too many players, two games would be started, with smaller teams; it never mattered if we had the regulation number of players. As long as there were enough to cover the infield positions and a rover for outfield, we could play.

And PLAY we did! With all the boisterous vigor young boys, and the occasional girl, can bring to a game. Sliding was an art form, diving for the ball an honor not to be passed up. We couldn’t throw as hard and fast as professional ballplayers, but we more than made up with it in enthusiasm. Close calls were hotly contested, although never to the point of fisticuffs, but certainly as far as honor demanded. We were our own umpires, and scorekeepers. In between games we would sit around, catching out breath for the next game, discussing the merits and shortcomings of our favorite players: Mantle, Maris, the Duke, Peewee, Dizzy, Stan the Man, and countless other heroes of the diamond. We dreamed of joining their ranks and every pitch was another opportunity to reach for the brass ring, to swing for the outfield. The days passed too quickly, too soon gone with the wind, never to return. Today, the lots are ?private property?, posted for ?no trespassing? and baseball is formalized in ?Little League?, with parents pushing their future Hall-of-Fame tykes. The dirt-lot games are gone, no longer the magnet they once were for every child within walking or biking distance, no longer the way we played away all those golden afternoons.