This is nuts to me.
In the early 80s, my cousin and I played “baseball” every day in my Gran’s front yard. It was 1v1 with ghost men, and we used a tennis ball and some modified rules:
- One defender, so we have to keep this ball in play. If you hit it over the fence, you’re out.
- One defender, so we threw the ball at each other kick ball style. If you get hit between bases, you’re out.
- Of course, 4 foul balls and you’re out
We got to play on a full team, on a real field with uniforms and everything for 6-8 weeks each spring. It felt like big league baseball to us. The league’s uniforms were basically just separated by colors. They were polyester so they could be used for multiple years. Your cap and stirrups were yours to keep. No logos on the caps, and teams were sponsored by local businesses. The sponsors had a patch with their name sewed on the back of the jersey, probably by someone’s mom. They were super itchy and annoying.
Every kid who played wore their colored trucker hat on the bus (no hats allowed in school), especially at the beginning of the season. Once the pecking order started sorting itself out, the teams who struggled wouldn’t have as much representation.
Here’s my team when I was in 3rd grade. We were the “red team” in the league. The year before I played on the green team–“Greenbrier Insurance”. You literally went by the name of your sponsor. We weren’t the “Cardinals” or “Reds”. We were known as “Corner Drug”.
Just like the post said, shared helmets, team catcher’s equipment (including the mitt), and about 7-8 bats for the team. Everybody knew the green Easton 29″ had magic in it.
I knew all my Corner Drug teammates except for two or three all the way through high school. Our official high school team was pretty good, and I wasn’t on it. But we did have a pickup game at lunch every day. It was also played with a tennis ball and modified rules:
- One out per team per inning
- A teammate pitches to you, but wouldn’t field. So a fielder stood right beside them
- Four foul balls, and you suck. Let someone else try
- Hit by the ball (kick ball style), you’re out
- Anyone can play. No limit on team size
- But it was Juniors vs Seniors–no underclassmen
- No leadoffs
- No stealing
- Game ends when the bell rings
- There was no rule against girls playing, but only boys played
If you hit the ball in play, you were likely to make it to first base–a school bus that took kids to trade school in the next town over after lunch. We didn’t even call it “first base”, we called it “Bus”. It was parked in roughly the same spot every day, and some days it was basically parallel to home. Any part of “Bus” counted as the base when you were running to it.
Once you were safe on “Bus”, you touched the right front fender for base running. The space between “Bus” and “Pole” (flag pole, 2nd base) was a lengthy and perilous distance to cover. Almost every out happened on a fly ball or a runner trying to make it to “Pole”.
The corner of third base (a huge section of concrete, maybe 25 sq. feet) was only a few steps from home plate, which was really just a general area where people were hanging out waiting to bat. If you made it to third you always went for home (unwritten rule) and almost always made it.
We used a min-bat someone got as a promotional item from a minor league game for one-handed batting. There was only one, and it stayed out in front of the school next to “Pole”.
It sounds so silly, but this game was taken seriously, and it mattered to us. The unapologetic Southern accents made the chants and chirping absolutely amazing.
You wanna talk about some fun? Son, we were having it.
