Love and Baseball

I fell in love with baseball when I was only 8 years old. At that time, our family was living in a tiny cockroach infested house on a Marine Corps Base. The house was really dumpy and my Dad was overseas, so my Mom and my sister and I lived there all alone. Times were tough. I was just a kid, new in town, and pretty much scared of everything because I didn’t know anybody and my Dad wasn’t around.

But there was a special gift my Dad gave me before he left. It was a small transistor AM radio. I can remember how I would lay in bed at night, worried about my Dad, crying myself to sleep. But one night when I turned the dial on that little radio, I came across a baseball game. I forget what teams were playing, but it sounded like they were having a ton of fun. Back in 1963, the big names were Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski, and the Alou brothers, Matty, Felipe and Jesus. They said all three Alou brothers were playing together in the outfield in the same game that night, so I figured that must be a normal thing. If you had brothers and played baseball, you all played together. Obviously, that’s not the norm. In fact, that was the only time ever that three brothers played professional baseball together. But boy oh boy, did that game sound fun! It really took my mind off my troubles. So from that night on I always tried to find a baseball game on the radio and I started dreaming about being a baseball player someday!

Unfortunately, being a military brat meant moving from town to town almost every year. That meant we never stayed in one place very long, which meant that I only got to be on a little league team once. I was 12 years old at the time, the oldest kid on the team, but I remember the best part of being on that team was finally making some friends.

Although I never really played much Little League Baseball, I did get a chance to play hard ball baseball as an adult. I joined the Halo Baseball Club when I was 48 and played until I was 64 and it was just like Little League all over again. There was all that same whining and complaining, but now it also included cursing, and some really creative practical jokes. And here again, the best part about being a baseball player was the friends I made. I truly miss it more than I can describe in words.

So fast forward to March of 2020. Now, not only do I not get to play baseball anymore, I can’t even watch or listen to a baseball game anymore. It’s kind of ironic. My Dad is overseas again (in heaven), I’m living in a small house again (although without the ornery cockroaches), and I can’t even see the friends I have (because of the Coronavirus). I find myself missing those late nights where that little AM radio kept me such great company!

Recently, baseball started back up again and everything in my life seems better now. Don’t get me wrong, I have the best wife in the world, four awesome children, and six wonderful grandchildren that I love dearly. So I’ve never had anything to complain about. Which reminds me, Yogi Berra once said, “Love is the most important thing in the world… but baseball is pretty good too!”

Beckham Aaron Trout "BAT" - Future Star of the LA Angels

You got to be a man to play baseball for a living, 

but you got to have a lot of little boy in you, too. 

~ Roy Campanella