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Sandlot baseball RIP

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Smallpotatoes, Jul 21, 2008.

  1. We played constantly when I was a kid. We'd have up to 20 kids at a park, but usually just 10-15. Right field out. Played all day, every day in the summer.

    Probably had something to do with my high school team being very good a few years later.
     
  2. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    But lousy at going to the opposite field...
     
  3. OTD

    OTD Well-Known Member

    My son will actually go to the small neighborhood park and hit wiffles by himself or with one other kid. It would be tough to get eight or 10 kids for a regular game though.
     
  4. mike311gd

    mike311gd Active Member

    I lived a couple blocks away from my elementary school, which had a couple basketball courts, a pair of open fields and three baseball fields with backstops. During the summer, my friends and I -- probably about six to 10 people -- would go up to the school and play a small game, take fielding or hitting practice and run situational plays.

    When we were a little younger, we'd just play outside of my house, taking fly balls and dodging cars in the street for hours. We'd play from about noon until the street lights lit up. It was easily the best time in my childhood.

    When I still lived in New York, a couple of us would go back to that school to hit, play catch and practice pitching. There's no better exercise, for me, than spending a couple hours playing baseball.
     
  5. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    Indian ball, baby.
     
  6. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    My kids played a lot of road/roller hockey in the spring about the time the NHL playoffs started.

    They'd take over a quiet municipal tennis court in a schoolyard around the corner. They'd take down one of the nets and figured out how to open the box that controlled the overhead lights. They'd often play to 9:00 or 10:00 in the summer. It was great. A huge asphalt rink surrounded by a 10 foot chain link fence--you never had to chase the ball.

    One of the regulars was Joey Votto, now of the Cincinnati Reds.

    There were about ten of them in the neigbourhood who hung out together and Joey would regularly get a ball game/500/hits'n errors game going in the school yard.

    In my neck of the woods, baseball is almost dead. Kids play summer hockey and of course, box lacrosse.

    About six years ago ball registration was so bad they took three local leagues (not Little League) and consolidated them into one.
     
  7. OJ1414

    OJ1414 Member

    We used to play baseball out in front of my house. Neighbor's mailbox was first, the water meter across the street was second, our mailbox was third and home was just the grassy area between two well-worn batters boxes in our front yard. We (almost) always played using tennis balls out there. One time we used a real baseball and, of course, first pitch is hit straight into a piece of glass that the guy across the street has outside for some odd reason. Sometimes, it'd just be one neighborhood kid, my two brothers and I in a 2-on-2 game. More often during the summer, there were 8-10 of us out there. Some of my best memories as a kid came from playing sports with the neighborhood kids, whether it was baseball using the tennis balls, basketball at my friend's down the street, football played across several yards using two-below on the driveways or roller hockey in our driveway with some tied-together milk crates for the goal. I'd be stunned if I drove through that neighborhood, or any other, and saw that large of a group of kids just playing.

    On summer weekends, my dad would even load us all into the back of his truck, drive out to the local field with a bag full of baseballs and pitch as kid after kid took their turn at the plate while the rest of us shagged balls. Great times.
     
  8. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    Further proof of the text in your sidesaddle, Starman. Genius. I was a terrible young athlete, but I got to spend hours and hours playing sports with my friends in a little vacant lot across the street from the church. We changed with the seasons; baseball, football, basketball. No refs, no adults, but we played by the rules and had a helluva good time. Did any of us go on to get athletic scholarships? No. Would we have if we had been given the "benefit" of organized youth sports? No.
     
  9. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    When I was a kid, kickball was the big game in my neighborhood. We would play right before the school bus came, and frequently after. In the fall, we'd play touch (or tackle if we found some grass) football.
     
  10. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    Didn't play a whole lot of sandlot baseball, but my brother and I had some dramatic games in the backyard. I once hit a certain game-winning grand slam, but the ball hit a tree. Ground rules changed it to a ground-rule double. My brother guffawed his ass off, and I threw my bat at him. So the next pitch was at my head. This time, I ran at my brother with my bat and chased him around the yard until our mom came out and rescued my brother from certain death.
     
  11. Big Buckin' agate_monkey

    Big Buckin' agate_monkey Active Member

    Whoa ... no wonder the princess is crying at youth sports. Grandma told her this story and she fears dad is going to club someone.
     
  12. Rumpleforeskin

    Rumpleforeskin Active Member

    [​IMG]

    These guys are upset.
     
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