an outside view

(Terry is still on vacation so we have reached into our archives and pulled out one of his timeless oldies but goodies)

It was one of those lazy Saturday afternoons. I was home alone. It seems that as my boys get older, I have more days like that. The temperature had gotten hot enough to drive me inside to the air-conditioning. It was a good excuse to not do that yard work that my wife had left strict orders for me to do.

I retreated to the rec room. It is a room that I had built onto our house so I would have a place to get way. You know what they say about best-laid plans. From Day One, that room belonged to everyone in the family EXCEPT me. Oh well!

But on this particular day, the room was mine and I slumped into one of the large beanbags and did something that I rarely do. I started channel surfing. Now, I watch very little television. I always say that if it isn’t on CNN or ESPN I probably haven’t seen it. I may be the only person in the world who has never seen a single episode of West Wing, Will and Grace, or Friends. And I just don’t understand the appeal of those silly reality shows or worse yet those ridiculous makeover shows.

With clicker in hand, I raced from channel to channel. I soon remembered why I don’t watch much TV. But then I ran across one of my favorite old movies, Sandlot. It is a great movie about a bunch of young boys who play sandlot baseball, dreaming of playing in the big leagues someday.

I couldn’t help but reminisce about the good old days when I was a youngster playing baseball. I have some memories of Little League but most of my memories are of playing pick-up games in the empty lot next door.

In the summertime, we could spend all day playing baseball. There were no daycare centers and summer camps were for the spoiled rich kids. Our parents didn’t have to worry about us. The sandlot was our babysitter. We had no coaches, no umpires, and a list of unwritten ground rules that changed with each game depending upon the situation.

Our field was small but perfect in every other way. We put concrete blocks in the ground to serve as permanent bases. We dug holes so they were level to the ground so no one would trip. We had a makeshift backstop that was in a constant state of disrepair. There was the cornfield across the street that seemed to eat up baseballs. If you hit it into the corn on the fly it was a home run and a ground rule double if you bounced it in. And then there was the obligatory neighbor’s fence over which many foul balls traveled. The trick was to jump the fence and get back across before the neighbors or their German Shepherds noticed. Our house sat in foul territory and we always held our breath when a ball was pulled in that direction. If I had a dollar for every window I have broken.

We got by with minimal equipment. We would share gloves. When a team made the third out, the players would leave their gloves at their positions for the team taking the field. No one had even thought of aluminum bats. We used wooden ones and to this day I wish they would outlaw aluminum bats. You just can’t replace the sound of the crack of the bat hitting the ball with the ping of metal. We were masters at getting maximum use out of a bat. When cracked, we would first use black electrical tape which would usually do for awhile but as the break got worse, we had to resort to small nails with tape on top. We didn’t discard a bat until it was completely broken in half.

The games were spirited and the competition fierce. The arguments were unforgettable but we always worked through them with no adult intervention, something kids have trouble doing today. We learned to get along and have fun.

Sadly, I can’t remember the last time I saw a group of kids just playing baseball for the fun of it. Oh sure, drive by Bower Field and it will be a beehive of activity with kids of all ages playing. Many of them are playing because their parents want them to, not because they want to. They wear fancy uniforms and have matching bat bags. Even the youngest of players carry hundreds of dollars worth of equipment with them. Go by the field and you hear moms and dads yelling at little junior and cheering on their team. You will hear coaches yelling in frustration and you will see confused kids going through the motions on the field. I can’t help but wonder if they wouldn’t have more fun if we gave them an old bat and ball and told them to be home for dinner. Wouldn’t it be nice to know they were playing for the love of the game rather than because it is the thing to do?

I know that the days of sandlot baseball are long gone. I would suspect that there is a direct correlation between that and the dying popularity of the game. Kids still play pick-up basketball and find an empty field in the fall and you might find some kids out there playing football. The popularity of those games is still on the rise. It may be the chicken and the egg syndrome. Do we see fewer pick-up baseball games because the popularity of the sport is waning or is the sport suffering because kids don’t play pick-up games? I don’t have an answer to that but I do know that today’s kids are missing out on a wonderful experience and some lifelong memories.

As the movie ends, I flip the TV off. That’s enough travel down memory lane for one day.