Child's play: Informal baseball games a rarity

hamptonroads ^ | May 16, 2010 | Rich Radford

[bcsco]

I pitched in Little League, and my buddies and I played 12” and 16” ball in our yards or vacant lots. My parents owned a vacant lot next door to us on the corner of Grove Ave & Fillmore in Oak Park. That was our ball field, as well as for other things. I hated it when they sold the lot and the new owners built a home on it.

But, we moved to Southern Wisconsin in ‘55, and I soon found buddies there to play ball with. My family built a new home o two lots, so the side lot again became a place to play ball. It was then that I got into Little League.

Soccer? Never played it. Never wanted to. As you say, all those ‘foreigners’ might play it, but not us kids. Baseball & football. And not touch football, either. We played for keeps.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Why does the Springsteen song “Glory Days” pop into my head all-of-a-sudden?

[marine86297]

My wife and I run a 24 team league that is part of a larger 9 town Association. We have 4 baseball divisions and 4 softball divisions. It is amazing how many kids want and yearn to play ball but parents only drop em off and pick em up.

Most parents just don't "have the time". I MAKE time every day to play catch, pepper, pickle etc. with my kids.

BTW, The Sandlot is our favorite family movie.

[Chi-townChief]

The problem now is that there’s way too much traffic on city streets and if you break something, you don’t just get yelled at by your parents, apologize, and pay for it. Now you’re probably headed for community service.

[glorgau]

“fast pitch”/”line ball” on a schoolyard with a rubber baseball,

Yep, _every_ grade school's yard used to have strike zones painted on them - don't see that anymore. Probably a liability thing.

[Nepeta]

I'm living in the same neighborhood where I grew up in the 1950s and 60s.

The local park is very well kept. When I was a kid, every day all summer the 3 ball diamonds would be packed with kid-organized games, no uniforms, no adults. Now, all summer long, those diamonds are empty. They only see use for organized games. The kids are inside, hiding from the heat in the AC, playing computer games.

[windcliff]

ping

[AlmaKing]

I could believe that I stayed thin through childhood and teens due to playing ball in 90 degree 90% humidity Lousiana weather throughout most of my youth.

I didn’t know it was hot until I was about 17.

[Cloverfarm]

“...Informal, unplanned games organized and played by children ...”

My kids have an overbearing teacher on recess duty most days, who tries to referee every freakin’ game they play. (She also wants all the kids to face the same way while on the swings. I digress ...)

So they invented some new games ;-)with very flexible rules.

[Cloverfarm]

“...Informal, unplanned games organized and played by children ...”

My kids have an overbearing teacher on recess duty most days, who tries to referee every freakin’ game they play. (She also wants all the kids to face the same way while on the swings. I digress ...)

So they invented some new games ;-)with very flexible rules.

[andy58-in-nh]

Creative acts of rebellion are always the best (and the most satisfying), especially when those against whom they are directed cannot perceive their true meaning.

[BenKenobi]

500! Now there’s a memory I haven’t thought of for some time!

[Nepeta]

I didn’t know it was hot until I was about 17.

I grew up without air conditioning. NOBODY had airconditioning in their homes. Even window units for bedrooms were rare. In summer, you got up in the morning, and played until dark; people spent evenings on their porches.

I installed AC in this house only in 2007. People thought I was crazy to go without, but I wanted to pay cash and get central air.

[Inyokern]

I grew up right near where Charles Henrickson grew up and I remember a game called Line Ball but I could not tell you the rules of it. I remember we used to play it in the alleys, which were about 12 feet wide and lined with flat-roofed garages. I think if you hit the ball onto a garage roof, you were out. You also had to somehow shinny up the drain pipe to get the ball off the roof.

[RayChuang88]

What I find interesting about this article is that in much of the world, you still see a lot of pickup sports games played by children involving one sport that is easily the most popular in the world: soccer.

And it's not hard to see why: you only needed a ball plus two well-defined goals to get a game going--the simplicity made it extremely popular everywhere it was introduced, mostly by British sailors exporting around the world in the late 19th Century.

I used to play a lot of soccer during PE class in high school and you better be in good running shape, especially since there's no break in the action (I played mostly defender positions because I didn't want to be essentially jogging non-stop during the game).