That brings back memories. Thanks Doctor. 

Yep. It always chaps my hide when I send the boys out to pick up the balls and I'm short 5 or 6 and have to go find them myself. In our day we took great care of the one baseball we had. Add to that the 1975 rookie George Brett card I always had in my spokes (probably ruined 10-12 of them that way).

However, if I was a kid again, I might prefer the bucket of balls, the expensive bag, the nice ride to the game and the attention of my dad, who, although a sports fan, probably never saw me play any sport more than a half dozen times.

I do miss them days!

Hah, yeah, that's the truth. Sometimes the old days were only great if viewed from far enough away. My dad (who otherwise was a supportive parent) was  too busy for sports, whether it was my LL games or HS football games.  And I'll never forget the time when I was  14 and I came home from the golf course to tell him that I had not only broken 80 for the first time but shot my first eagle.  

"Why do you want to play an old man's game?"

Yeah, those were the days.

I repeat that story anytime my wife points out that that the only way I miss one of my kids events is if they're both competing at the same time in different places.

I can clearly recall my Pee Wee Reese glove hanging over my handle-bars. Indeed a simpler time.

I agree with roothog regarding the dad part. Mine worked his butt off and rarely saw me play...

For me it was walking with my glove over the bat handle, wood Willie Mays model, with my spikes, shoestrings tied together, over my shoulder. No sport drink, just a warm water fountain, or a hose.

Lol! My kids would die of thirst before they would drink from a water hose. I probably received 90% of my hydration growing up from water hoses.

Doctor - we grew up in the same neighborhood.

oldmanmoses,

I too always used the Willie Mays model Adirondeck.  Never did like that model, but I was a Willie Mays fan.  Couldn't hit with anything else.

Baseball sure was fun back then.  Then in the winter we would shovel the snow off the basketball court and play with gloves and wearing parkas all day long. If you had a disagreement with someone you settled it with the fists.  Never had any money and didn't care.  Life was simple!

Most kids today just wouldn't understand. In fact, looking back at it, I'm not sure I understand either.

If you let the hose run for 30 seconds or so you get the cool water from the underground pipe  And that metallic taste!

Anybody got a bat? OK, we'll pound in some nails and tape up the broken one you got from the high school game. Yeah, it's big and heavy. So choke up. Bring some duct tape in case the cover on this ball rips some more. 

As preteens we played a game on the LL field where we didn't run the bases if we didn't have enough players. Anything rolling to the fence was a double. Hitting the fence on a fly was a triple. When we were twelve and hitting too many homers we had an outfielder behind the fence. Catch it and its not a homer.

We went home for lunch in elementary school. On the way back to school after lunch was a stop at the corner store for a Ring Ding and a pack of baseball cards. It was five cards and gum for a nickel. One time in a packaging error I got five Willie Mays. Man, did I have some trade negotiating power. I "scattered" one just to watch the mayhem. That was a busy afternoon at the nurse's office.

Scattered - We would get up on an incline on the playground and scale a card into the crowd below. Usually it was your extra Hal Lanier, Dal Maxvill or Ray Oyler card. I once traded a Dick Tracewski for a rubber band. If these cards weren't scaled they ended up in the spokes of your bike.

But let it run to make sure there aren't any worms in the hose.

No money? Find a penny and buy two mini Tootsie Rolls or Mint Juleps. I remember one time a friend of mine and I spent the afternoon hitting as many pay phones as we could and pressed the coin return. Then we bought sundaes with the bounty.

Oh yes, riding the bike home after practice and in the dark.  Can you imagine, with no helmet.  :-)  I remember the first aluminum bat our coach bought for the team.  Yes, only one for the team, vs today some HS players have 3 in their bag and many more at home.  We were 13 and it was the silver Easton with green lettering.  Coach threatened to run us to death if we layed it down on the concrete dugout floor.

We used to play in my backyard. Sometimes we actually had throw-down bases (pays to know the high school coach ) and other times we didn't. You can still see the old home plate area today. First base was the corner of the garden. Yes, fresh grape tomatoes were consumed right off the vine. Second base was either on this side of the tree or it was on the other side of the sandbox. Third base was the corner of the brick house In order to hit a home run, you had to hit through a tree. We played many balls out of the tree. If we got bored of baseball, we'd head down the street to kid's house and put the hockey gear on. But first we had to quickly clean up the garage so we had a place for the goal! Our wheels on the roller blades didn't get switched out until they were too small to still be useful; in fact I had many times where I would just be short a wheel in the middle of the skate!

Mountains of southern West Virginia - I have no idea how we weren't thrown out of the back of the pick up truck going around the curves while we were standing up in the back holding onto the cab.  Only way to get everyone to games / practice because each little community was so remote couldn't really get there unless had truck.  It was our version of the team bus.  Each team would have a truck pull up with almost the entire team in the back.  Hop out, play ball, watch other teams, horse around with each other, walk up the road to the store to spend allowance and then hop back into the bed of the truck and go home.

I was playing summer ball in HS and our water "hose" was a hose that was run up into the mountain of a stream coming out.  The water hose came across the creek the steam emptied into.  We had to cross the road and go down to the bank of the creek to drink water from that hose.  I can honestly say it was the best water I've drank in my life.

I can actually picture all of these reply's. I learned to hit the ball to the opposite field at a young age. If I pulled the ball and it hit old man Murrays camper then game is over and I usually got a whooping. So I taught myself to let the ball get deep and hit it over the okra in right center.

 Just for the heck of it I think I will drink from the hose Today.

Five-cent Charms suckers ... returning soda bottles for 2 cents apiece.

Playing bottle cap ballgames with broomstick bats. Talk about learning to see it and hit it.

Knowing the lineups of many MLB teams, being them, and hitting from whatever side the hitter hit from. I can still swing a decent lefty bat.

Flipping the bat to see who hit first, and arguing whether "bottle caps" where legal.

JP you unleashed a torrent of memories. Broomstick a tennis ball c

brick wall with a strike zone on it in a parking lot. 2 or 4 kids and game on. Up and down the lineups batting from the side they hit as they swung the bat. If you were Yaz at he time the bat was high from the left side if you were Tony Perez you were righty with that kind of bend at the waist he had! If you were Reggie you held the bat about waist high before swinging from the heels from the left side. What terrific memories! 75 world series was re-played countless times!

That's what this thread does for me, too, moses. Reminds me of things I'd almost forgotten.And your point about hitting like the MLB'ers? ABSOLUTELY! Heck, we argued about it!

"Morgan doesn't pump his arm like THAT!"

A few more:

- Becoming expert announcers. Damn, we could call a game.

- Halting play in the street to let cars pass.

- Knowing how to make a real wiffle ball do whatever we wanted.

I can remember being told we weren't allowed to do this or that outside on certain days because "you've got a game tonight." Not that it really stopped us, but it just meant we'd play 4 hours instead of 7 outside that day  

How about playing pick up games most of the day then dad coming to pile us in the back of the truck to go to "real" practice til dark.  I also rode my bike 2 miles each way to two a day football until it got stole then I jogged to and from the morning practice and to the afternoon, dad picked me up after that one.  Best season of football in my life, I was in the best shape in my life.  Never entered my mind to quit or ask mom to take me.  

....not only hanging the glove over the handlebars....but how about trying to hold the bat across the handlebars and steer your bike at the same time.  Everyone remembers the time you had your bat that way and tried to make a sharp turn...only to have the bat hit your knee and you go off the road or sidewalk and end up on your butt....lol

Somewhere, an inventor knew what you're talking about, Buckeye:

Battie Caddie

Then to add to the "degree of difficulty" factor put a friend on the handlebars. You found out which friends really trusted you when they would ride on your handlebars.

The memories...... Being in the back yard with a bat and tennis ball.  We would try to see who could get it over the house and into the neighbors yard accross the street.  How I learned to hit.