My column published on this week's sports page of the Madison County Journal. www.mainstreetnews.com
By Dallas Bordon
Deep into the heart of
baseball season and Little League All-Stars, I find myself drifting way back to
my days of playing Little League baseball. I start to recall the way some
things have changed such as the different types of bat bags, uniform pants that
go all the way down to your cleats, high priced bats, the black-out worn under
the eyes and many more things that seem to be popular now. I don’t remember
putting so much emphasis on using a certain type of bat. If it felt good and we
could swing it, we would use it every time. If we couldn't find a hit in a
certain bat we would simply search the dugout until we found one that would. We
didn't care about brand names or styles of cleats, sweatbands, or batting
gloves; we used what felt comfortable and sometimes superstitions had a lot to
do with what we used. I once used a batting glove for two seasons that had two
fingers torn off just because I thought it gave me luck and no matter how
stupid it looked, I didn't care. Back before the long style of baseball pants
were introduced, we wore the elastic leg bottom pants that would go long enough
to cover our knees. We also didn't wear the solid color socks or the socks that
had the stirrup stripe made into the sock. We had the old fashion stirrup sock
that was a separate sock we pulled over our white sock. They were aggravating
at times because the stirrup part of the sock would come out of our shoe and
would dangle behind our ankles at times. And eye blackout? Most of us never
even knew what that was. The only black-out we sported under our eyes would
come from getting hit in the eye by the ball.
There are similarities
today that exist from my days in little league. I remember what each game
meant to us and how we would carry bragging rights with us to school each day
after a win. Even though my coaches would try to instill in us that win or
lose, it’s just a game and we should have fun playing the game. To us guys on
the team, we found ways to disagree; to us it was more than just a game.
When I think about playing baseball growing up, my thoughts go back to
those days away from little league. It was a league and a game played between
the neighborhood kids where we would often find any open field or someone’s
back yard to invade. We would choose teams the best we could and usually the
worst players always were selected last. While living in South Carolina, my
house was always the “home” stadium. We had the largest backyard and even had
baselines drawn with white chalk-powder we purchased from the local sporting
goods store down the street. We even played the old famous game of pickle,
sometimes called “hot box” where we would lay out two of my dad’s old car mats,
put a defensive person at each base and two runners on the two bases. The game
was then played with the runners running between the two bases trying to avoid
getting tagged out. The person tagged out became the defensive player. The
games of “pickle” and those neighborhood backyard baseball games turned my
parent’s yard into our neighborhood sandlot. It was a place where we mimicked
baseball heroes and a place where bragging rights meant more to us than any
kind of trophy. It was a place we grew to love the game of baseball and played
every chance we had on that chalked base-lined backyard. It was a place that
will hold memories never to be forgotten. It was our field, our time, and we
played without parents getting mad at coaches or us for the mistakes we made on
that field. And regardless of the styles of pants, cleats, and bats we used
back then and the fact that not a one of us now recall who won what or when, we
had fun and it was just a game.
