Joe said “Let’s get a game going.” I know my best friend did not mean anything other than a game of sandlot baseball at a park a couple blocks away from our homes. Joe and I lived in a north suburb of Chicago , where boys played unsupervised baseball or softball every summer. We did not have personal computers back then, or any of the other high tech stuff the kids play with now. We didn’t spend any time with video games; no such games existed to wile away our summers. If we weren’t at home watching an afternoon Cubs game on tv, then a bunch of guys gathered together to play ball and talk about school and girls. No coaches told us how to bat or where to play and we felt a freedom that would only exist in this short span of time; a few summers stretching from elementary school to high school.
I’m told we’re losing sandlot baseball as a pastime for boys. The structured sports, video games and fear of crime have taken away from a piece of Americana . Too bad this is another piece chipped away from kids, who will look back someday and see they spent way too much of their time on video games and never really got the chance to just be kids….running around….policing themselves…..playing games that demanded a bit of energy and the outdoors. I can’t tell how quickly the boys gathered once Joe got it in his head to “play ball.” But the kids came from every direction to our park, some with bats, others with balls, and everyone carried a mitt. We’d make up teams, agree on 9 innings, and have to hit the ball; no one would strike out. I liked this more than organized baseball that I played for several years and I liked this more than root beer floats and chocolate milk shakes.
Some of the guys I still talk to so many years later. One guy, Dave, became a financial analyst, another became a science writer, and another a lawyer for a giant utility. They were the guys I played in this little park where we had a water fountain built of brick and metal and a small playground where kids had to climb this funny looking elephant with a slide for a trunk. The park was surrounded with a fence so none of the balls would end up rolling in the street. Today, the park where we thought freely and lied in the grass waiting for our turn to bat or take the field, is just a place for swinging on a swing or practicing your set shot on half court, or for climbing the monkey bars. The field is gone….and sandlot ball is just a memory today….a memory I bet a lot of guys in their 40s, 50s and 60s don’t take lightly in their lives. Sandlot ball maybe gone from our summers, but I would give almost anything for one more at bat…..one more chance to lie on the ground squinting up at the sun just off the field and hear the guys around me talking about girls and their summer plans.
Joe Cicero Weekdays 5a-10a
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