Basebawling

Today, returning from a morning jaunt at Newcastle Park with Ranger, I noticed a flyer on the pole by Connor's Bar B Homes. City of Renton Recreation Dept. is advertising for participants in a softball league. "Hmmm...", I thought. "Hey! They have a senior's league. But am I (heh, heh) old enough? Oh, yeah. Should I hurry and enlist? Let's see"

We played a lot of ball in Kennydale from my grade school years all the way through Jr. High. "Softball" wasn't in our vocabulary but "hardball" was; that was the organized game operated by the Little League. Some local neighborhood stars did go on to LL and, later, Renton High School teams but I never did. Even though I was a fair to middling player I chose to do fishing and paper routing for after school and weekend activity. Whatever we chose later, though, on the block almost everyone got involved in what we called "baseball" and today would probably be known as pick-up softball.

We played two places: the Budd's (aka Chapman's) vacant lot at the northeast corner of 36th No. and Park Ave. No. - this property is still vacant, overseen now by the huge ivy-covered original old growth timber stump; and our back field, across Meadow Ave. No. from the Rogers and Vergello properties. Both places had their challenges with rough terrain (also, cow pies at our place), foul ball trajectories, no backstops and acute (or obstuse) base line angles, but we were able to overcome those with little hassle. What brought our games to an end was our own growth. The fields became too small to contain our Jr. High strengths. Everyone started hitting homeruns onto adjacent properties every time up.

Our get togethers were co-ed and spontaneous with a constant revolving cast of characters fitting the game into their familial and chore schedule as best they could. Often, a game was on all day with different characters or the same ones twice or thrice at in am and pm time slots. Equipment was varied. Some of us had real mitts and a good bat or two; others, nothing. We friction taped a lot of balls to keep them intact.
Rules were always evolving and we played pretty rough. A couple of times there were broken bones and barbwire cuts. Hey, it was all for fun and learning social skills, right?

So, I'm thinking about all this and considering whether to rush right down and sign up for a senior softball team. "They probably have regulation fields, effective fences, real baselines with infield dirt, excellent equipment, and (gulp!) umpires", I say to myself. "Probably limited opportunity for 'just being a McNeely' in that kind of environment!" That's the 'decider' right there, alright. I'll pass this time and wish them well.