Is there anything more lonely than an empty baseball field? It's so sad to see -- all that potential fun going unused. There aren't enough baseballs in the world to satisfy my need to knock a few around the park.
If heaven is anything akin to the Norse visions of battle fields where warriors fight their battles, perhaps fall on the field, then return again the next day, then my nirvana would be to play baseball forever. I know it sounds like Field of Dreams, but that's why that film touched so many people. (Oh yeah, and the idea of connecting with one's father.)
Baseball doesn't seem to be as popular as it was when I was young. Kids today like to play it, but I lived in my back yard imagining myself pitching to batters, formulating a Whiffleball league of whales and sharks and dolphins and elephants and assorted others. Players with histories, families. Making trades, selling clubs to my friends, then acting as commissioner when they weren't honoring the league's traditions. (I was a bit of a pain in the ass, I guess.)
My point is I didn't need a whole team of players to create a game. Heck, I'd play by myself if no one was available.
Is it a lack of imagination that keeps children off baseball fields these days? Is it parents' fears of litigation that instills within a child a reluctance to pitch another kid inside when there's nothing on the line? Does any child in the Brayton school district of Summit know what qualifies as a double or a triple when playing stick ball at Memorial Field?
There is nothing wrong with boys and girls playing baseball for hours by themselves. It's not a waste of time. It's imaginative, it's creative, it's structured ("If you hit it to right field, you're out, because we don't have anyone covering there"), it's healthy. Kids strengthen their arms by throwing, their legs by running, their social skills by being their own umpires.
"Go out and play, be home for dinner by 6"
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