Meet You Down the Park

When we were kids, we would have a bowl of sugary cereal and then grab our baseball gloves and head to the park. Every day in the summer, we would have a couple of dozen classmates show up wiping dreams from their eyes. Hopefully, someone had a newer baseball, one that hadn't been chewed by a dog, and a bat that wasn't reclaimed with a screw in the tape-covered handle.

Captains would be chosen and the team selection would begin. As you were selected, you would line up behind your captain on the backstop.

And then we would play. All day.

When my son and his friends were about the age we were when we played those pickup games, us Dads lamented that our boys didn't know how to play a pickup game. A few of us decided to do something about it.

We called other Dads in the neighborhood and asked them to send their kid or kids down to the park on Saturday morning. My friend John and I were at the park hoping enough kids would show up. They did.

John and I coached a team in an organized league together. We also shared a love for baseball and wanted to impart that passion to them. John and I had grown up in different ballparks in different cities but agreed the game could be more fun without strict rules and adult supervision.

We simply got them started. Choose two captains. Captains, take turns picking players until all players have been selected. No supervision.

Then we sat down on the berm in foul ground and watched the game.

John and I showed up for a couple more weeks and then faded away. The joy of the game had been passed down.