A Different Time

[shake-n-bake]

All you guys talk in the past tense. I never stopped playing all the time.

Heck, I'm in hog heaven right now....HS baseball season is over and 2 weeks until summer ball. My boys have more time to play with me. I count down the time until they get out of school. Help them bust out their homework. Get them out of their chores with mom. And, we play some ball.

[CircleChange11]

I remember my summers being as good as it gets. We were at the field playing baseball at 9am. We played until about 2pm when we went home to eat. Then we played Strat O Matic Baseball until it was time for practice or game. After our games or practice we played whiffle ball under the lights in the backyard. Any day we weren't at the field we were at the beach or the lake.

My son and his friends played a lot of pickup baseball and whiffle ball. Later in the afternoon they played baseball video games until games or practice. If they weren't playing baseball they were at someone's pool. At night they played whiffle ball or basketball.

My kids never had tv's, dvd players and pc's in their rooms until my son was in high school and laptops were a requirement.

I've never bought into the world is more dangerous and let my kids go to the ball field. I believe the internet and cable bringing every crime that occurs in the country into our homes on a daily basis has scared the hell out of people. The murders from the book In Cold Blood were as gruesome as it gets. Most people didn't know about it until Truman Capote wrote the book. Today we would see the police live putting up the police tape and a reporter live interviewing a wailing neighbor.

The Adam Walsh story/movie was the first time my parents really started monitoring where I went and when I cam home. We, literally, were at the diamonds or each other's house all day long. When it got dark, there were two huge parking lots (with lights!) in front of my house.

We actually had "backyard baseball leagues" made up of 2-on-2 teams, with lawn chairs serving as catchers/strike-zone.

When I was in high school is when Earl Weaver Baseball came out (IBM) and MIcroLeague (Apple 2e) were really making inroads. Nintendo also came out and RBI was really freackin cool.

I can say this, if the had MLB The Show when I was a kid, I would have done little else ... especially the "Road to the Show" (or My Player feature of NBA 2K). You literally create yourself and work your way up through professional baseball.

When buddies weren't around I was hitting rocks with wiffle ball bats and throwing tennis balls up against a brick building.

Being inside was reserved for times when you were on punishment.

It's a different world.

[JCincy]

When I was 6 we played "tennis-ball baseball" in the street and backyard football. I think I played one or two years of LL. After 2 years we moved to a farm.

5 acres and one kid my age. He enjoyed eating more than being outside. If his sister didn't get married by 16, she was an old maid... shutter. I signed up late for LL baseball and was offered the bat boy role. Yawn.

Then we moved to another farm. All calls were long distance. Me and the younger kids next door road dirt bikes and played in the creek. I did play little league. My first coach was a sadist. He took great pleasure in the bean ball. I played the outfield the minimum number of innings. We lost all of our games... until the head coach was out of town along with his pet players. We scrubs won our last game. The next year I had a great coach. We practiced in his cow pasture. My last swing of the bat was beautiful line drive to right field. It was caught. But it was awesome. Then we moved again.

Bigger farm, zero neighbors for miles. Baseball was a rubber ball against the back wall. Sigh. Great for raising horses and cows.

I have done my best to "plant roots" and live closer to civilization. We have been in our home since before my 13 year old son was born. Last year they completed baseball diamonds over the fence of our back yard! We walk to some of our practices and games! (I'd love be 13 again and be at home in the summer time!) And we get out to the fields about once a week in the summer. We've had a little success getting others to join us. As the kids around us get older, I'm confident we can get them to come along.

[CircleChange11]

All you guys talk in the past tense. I never stopped playing all the time.

Heck, I'm in hog heaven right now....HS baseball season is over and 2 weeks until summer ball. My boys have more time to play with me. I count down the time until they get out of school. Help them bust out their homework. Get them out of their chores with mom. And, we play some ball.

We're somewhere every night. Recently it's been all games which is wearing thin. I'm ready for just a day of playing catch fielding ground balls (he hits me some too) and just funnin around.

Sometimes I get asked why the high school coaches wear the uniform and not just some coaching pants and shirt, and my response is always "Because they let us" or "They can't stop us". The whole process of putting on a uniform is a cool deal.

I'm soon to be 39 and some of the most fun I have is when I get ot shag flied during BP with the pitchers.

I could field ground balls all day long. I love baseball practice and front yard catch.

[Stumanji]

When I was 6 and 7, it was tee-ball. When I was 8 and 9, it was live pitching from opposing players. Ball four meant you hit off the tee.

Never ever faced "Coach Pitch". I thought that was a relatively new concept when I heard about it.

[Coletrain]

I grew up about 300 yards from the local ball park. We played some kind of ball everyday! Baseball, stickball, half rubber, etc. We would play all morning, go home to eat lunch, then play again. If we got too hot we would ride our bikes down to the river and swim. We even played ball on the sandbar at the river. LOL No way I let my kid go to the river with just a group of friends! Times have changed!

[Stampede]

We would play until the baseball fell apart.

We played barefoot in the snow, and walked 20 miles to the field and it was uphill both ways. Oh, and the field was covered with broken glass and rattlesnakes and we liked it that way. lol

[tg643]

I can say this, if the had MLB The Show when I was a kid, I would have done little else ... especially the "Road to the Show" (or My Player feature of NBA 2K). You literally create yourself and work your way up through professional baseball.

When we weren't playing ball we played Strat O Matic all summer. The cards were based on the previous season's result. When I was in the house later at night I played 50 games leagues by myself and compiled all the stats. I had expansion drafts and free agent drafts until my six team league had bloated to twelve teams.

I remember summer nights when I played Strat late at night while listening to the Red Sox play the Angels. With the technology of the time the game sounded on the radio like it was 3,000 miles away.

[CircleChange11]

We played barefoot in the snow, and walked 20 miles to the field and it was uphill both ways. Oh, and the field was covered with broken glass and rattlesnakes and we liked it that way. lol

We used rattlesnakes for the bases and the broken glass was for the foul lines.

We also lit the infield on fire to increase mental toughness.

The bats all had nails sticking through the handles. No matter.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

The Adam Walsh story/movie was the first time my parents really started monitoring where I went and when I cam home. We, literally, were at the diamonds or each other's house all day long. When it got dark, there were two huge parking lots (with lights!) in front of my house.

We actually had "backyard baseball leagues" made up of 2-on-2 teams, with lawn chairs serving as catchers/strike-zone.

When I was in high school is when Earl Weaver Baseball came out (IBM) and MIcroLeague (Apple 2e) were really making inroads. Nintendo also came out and RBI was really freackin cool.

I can say this, if the had MLB The Show when I was a kid, I would have done little else ... especially the "Road to the Show" (or My Player feature of NBA 2K). You literally create yourself and work your way up through professional baseball.

When buddies weren't around I was hitting rocks with wiffle ball bats and throwing tennis balls up against a brick building.

Being inside was reserved for times when you were on punishment.

It's a different world.

That micro league baseball was pretty fun. We used to always have drafts every year. I remember a left handed hitter who was fast usually got a hit when you bunted. I guess that must have been one of the bugs in the game. Then there were guys who would pick a pitcher with a 0.00 era and he would pitch shutouts every game until we made a 40 innings pitched minimum. Rob Dibble was a monster one year. I think we played it from 1985 until 1989.

[tg643]

All you guys talk in the past tense. I never stopped playing all the time.

Heck, I'm in hog heaven right now....HS baseball season is over and 2 weeks until summer ball. My boys have more time to play with me. I count down the time until they get out of school. Help them bust out their homework. Get them out of their chores with mom. And, we play some ball.

I'm lost. My daughter is done playing college softball. My son is a redshirt this year. He'll be playing in a collegiate summer league 300 miles away. If my son played catch with me now it would be a courtesy as a dad-son moment. If he unleashed the ball he might kill me. My 5'10" daughter is years away from having her 6'4" lefthanded son.

[Stampede]

We used rattlesnakes for the bases and the broken glass was for the foul lines.

We also lit the infield on fire to increase mental toughness.

The bats all had nails sticking through the handles. No matter.

Now that's some funny stuff! Your nails joke did remind me that I had a wood bat that was glued and screwed back together. It seems like it lasted quite a while like that. Hey, is that what they mean when they say "he hit it right on the screws"? ha ha

[bbrages]

We're low-tech here...

I have a Commodore 64 emulator (VICE) on my laptop and I play Micro League with my son periodically. He loves it. We played just last week... for some reason, he wanted to be the 1955 Senators. The emulator lets you run the game at 2x speed... which is a great improvement.

My son is also in a Strat-O-Matic league. I don't play that game.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

We're low-tech here...

I have a Commodore 64 emulator (VICE) on my laptop and I play Micro League with my son periodically. He loves it. We played just last week... for some reason, he wanted to be the 1955 Senators. The emulator lets you run the game at 2x speed... which is a great improvement.

My son is also in a Strat-O-Matic league. I don't play that game.

Yeah I remember it used to be really slow at my house but my buddy had a faster computer and we could finish the games in like 15 minutes.

Yeah the 55 Senators were one of the teams the back of the box glorified as a fun type of matchup. The 27 Yankees vs the 55 Senators.

[omg]

[QUOTE=tg643;2013528\ Then we played Strat O Matic Baseball until it was time for practice or game. [/QUOTE]

Yes we used to play Strat-o-Matic. Think was, a couple of brothers came up with Strat-o-Matic cards for players in our own 14-15 year old league.. I was rated a one for fielding but a four for running. Pissed me off. A lot of other guys got pissed off, too. Of course, the brothers rated themselves all one and twos.