I'm 62. Everyone I played sandlot ball with did Joe's elbow flap, especially if you were having a great day.

For all of you young travel ball veterans:

You missed out on a lot of fun doing those practice every day of the year teams. Winning my Pony League's championship the summer after my freshman year was nowhere near as much fun as an average day when we were playing at our neighborhood's vacant lot. The man that owned it kept it mowed all summer when his son was a kid. He continued to mow it for us kids that came after his son was grown. If one of us got hurt, nobody's parents thought about suing him. We didn't have real bases. Seem to remember having plywood squares at first and home plate, but sometimes we'd use a paper bag with a few rocks on it at second and third. If one of use got a big splinter from a piece of plywood, nobody got sued.

By the 5th or 6th grade, we used the fields we played Little League thru American Legion on. They were vacant for pick-up games all day every summer. Sometimes we'd ride our bikes across town and play our neighborhood against those snotty nosed Eastside kids. People didn't sue cities if their unsupervised kids got hurt playing on their field.

Sorry for the rant. It just kills me to think about an unsupervised kid not being able to go play outside all day long. Like being not being able to drink as a freshman at LSU.

This post was edited on 3/15/21 at 10:22 pm

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by SuperSaint

Sorting Out OT BS Since '2007'

Member since Sep 2007

140462 posts

Posted on 3/15/21 at 11:06 pm to chinese58

quote:
For all of you young travel ball veterans:

You missed out on a lot of fun doing those practice every day of the year teams. Winning my Pony League's championship the summer after my freshman year was nowhere near as much fun as an average day when we were playing at our neighborhood's vacant lot. The man that owned it kept it mowed all summer when his son was a kid. He continued to mow it for us kids that came after his son was grown. If one of us got hurt, nobody's parents thought about suing him. We didn't have real bases. Seem to remember having plywood squares at first and home plate, but sometimes we'd use a paper bag with a few rocks on it at second and third. If one of use got a big splinter from a piece of plywood, nobody got sued.

By the 5th or 6th grade, we used the fields we played Little League thru American Legion on. They were vacant for pick-up games all day every summer. Sometimes we'd ride our bikes across town and play our neighborhood against those snotty nosed Eastside kids. People didn't sue cities if their unsupervised kids got hurt playing on their field.