Thankfully, there used to be 2 brothers 2 doors down from me and we used to go to the crescent nearby and play with a tennis. They had the balls, we brought our own gloves, I brought a wooden and aluminum bat. If my older brother wanted to come along, we'd have a 2 on 2 game, one pitched, one fielded. Or if my brother didn't come, we'd get the little 5 year kid who lived in the crescent to play, sometimes he just came out. Best arm I ever saw for a 5-year old. When he got older and started playing hardball, his dad started to coach his kids travel team.
If it was just us 3, we'd play this game we made up on our own. One guy fielded, one pitched, the other hit. The hitter would hit until he got out. We'd use ghost runners. And since there were only 2 fielders at most, we had a rule where you could throw the ball over the base on a force play, or hit the runner with the tennis ball for an out. We used the hitter's glove as home plate, first base was a streetlight, second base was the grid to a sewer, third was whoever's car was parked there. If there were too many cars we'd in their front yard or my front yard. We'd use a stuffed ball that we called the 'mushy' ball, when it got busted we'd tape it up with ducktape (sp?). Their yard, first base was the corner of the neighbours garden, second and thrid I can't remember and home plate was a glove. My yard first base was a fire hydrant, the bush next to it was the first baseman because it never dropped the ball. 2nd was a tree, third was the pole from my basketball net, and home was, yes, a glove, or frisbee, or whatever was lying around.
After they moved away, me and my dad would play in the yard just us two. When he wasn't around, I was always playing games by myself, using my imagination. I was always using the back door as a mirror where I would play a game imitading everyone's batting stance that I saw on TV. Our backyard a tiny little slope at one point, I used it as a pitchers mound and threw a tennis or rubber ball at the brick wall. The problem was that only the lower 3 feet were brick, the rest was aluminum siding which I dented more than once! My dad got these rubber sheets that he cut out a home plate, and bases. I'd pitch to the plate or use the plate in front of my backdoor. In the front yard, because I played their alot, the area where the hitter was, the grass had died and eroded away as was just dirt. I'd set up the plate their, and even draw in the batters box in the dirt with a stick, or if the dirt was too hard for sculpting, I use sticks to make a batters box, and imagine a pitcher pitching to me. If I got a 'hit' I'd run the places. I think the neighbours thought I was crazy, but I didn't care at the time.
Now it's just a struggle to even get my dad to throw me BP at the school across the street, not to mention that this area isn't a baseball area, nor the greatest place to make friends. It's almost impossible to practice. All I really have now is the room I have in my garage to swing off a tee. I practice my leadoffs and throwing technique in slow mo in my backyard.
Sigh, I wish I was a kid again.
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