In my younger days, I used to enjoy playing tennis and basketball. I suppose I still would, but haven’t played either for several years. Last time I shot a few hoops in Garrett Park, some young fellas – at least they were younger than 40 – walked on the court, so I had to leave. Either that, or make a fool of myself.

I’ve never been much of a TV sports fan. I don’t enjoy watching more than a game or two of tennis. (Watching an entire set or match would bore me to tears.) Similarly, one quarter of roundball is about all I can handle. I watch more TV baseball than any other sport, but that’s only because it’s such a long season and there are so many games. I guess football, especially college football, is probably my favorite sport but, here again, I rarely watch a whole game. Unlike many fans, I don’t really care if the Huskies or Cougars win or lose.

Of course, it was different in my high school days. At that time, the sun rose and set on Friday night football heroes and the entire student body was depressed for nearly five minutes if the team lost. In part, this was due to some kind of mass hysteria and also, in part, because everyone knew everyone on the team.

Back than, local businesses and granges used to field baseball teams in the summer. There were teams from the Newaukum, Krain and Osceola districts, as well as teams sponsored by various taverns, grocery stores and Fisher Brothers Hardware. I thoroughly enjoyed these games because, again, I knew many of the players and also because, if the truth be known, many of the players came to the games half drunk, which was quite entertaining and eye-opening to a rather innocent middle-school kid.

But by far – no competition whatsoever – the most entertaining, humorous and delightful ball games I’ve ever seen are today’s T-ball games on the field behind J. J. Smith. The players are only 5 or 6 years old, thank you.   But what a splendid bunch of ball players they are! Some of them have a difficult time lifting and swinging the bat, but they have the other embellishments well covered; that is, the little tug at their shirt sleeves, a la Ichiro. Then too, it may take more than three strikes to hit the ball, but no one seems overly concerned about this.   However, if the batter takes too long at the plate, it’s understandable that the concentration of the outfielders begins to wane. This accounts for the centerfielder crawling around on his hands and knees, playing in the dirt, while the second baseman chased after a robin. It should be noted that the first basegirl committed several errors; that is, she had a great deal of difficulty catching the ball when it was thrown in her vicinity. When she finally did, she was so amazed by this feat, and the standing ovation it produced, she forgot to touch first base to put out the batter, who continued running to second base and, for some crazy reason, right on into center field. It must be pointed out other team members also made many errors. For instance, a batter hit a slow-rolling ball to the shortstop, but the shortstop missed the play because he was doing a somersault.

I’m not sure which team won the game. I don’t think anyone else knew, either.