Field of Dreams

I don't really remember my first experience with baseball. It was something that was just always there.

Wiffle ball was an early baseball experience. My Dad would come out and see us playing wiffle ball right next to the house.

"I have seven acres here," he would say. "Why do you play right next to the house?"

"The wall of the house is the Green Monster of Fenway Park," I'd answer. Jeesh, lol, isn't that obvious?

When my cousin and I were young we'd go up to the legion fields to watch his brother play baseball. His brother was a good pitcher, a real good pitcher. In all honesty though, we never watched a whole lot of the games. We chased foul balls so we could turn them in to the dugout for a nickel. We had a little enterprise going.

I played baseball until I was 16. I believe that took me to end of junior legion ball. Baseball has always been part of my life, but it was not my best sport. Basketball and soccer began to take more and more precedence over baseball.

I was a pretty good third baseman. But wherever I played there always seemed to be a third baseman already in place. I was a pretty good pitcher too. But that job always seemed to go to the coach's sons. So I seemed to always end up in the outfield, which is an interesting position for a guy who really can't judge a fly ball.

But the reality is I can't hit a breaking ball either - even in wiffle ball.

So for baseball I became a fan, someone who waits to hear Harry Kalas' voice every Spring.

But I'll still have tons of fond memories of playing baseball. One of my favorites is just going out in the yard with my Dad to have him hit me fly balls. When I was little, no one could hit fly balls higher than my Dad. He could hit them so high!

The World Series, of course, starts tonight. I'll miss a considerable bit of it since most of it occurs after my bedtime. But it will spark the imaginations of hundreds of others of little guys out there. And they'll turn spaces you couldn't imagine playing wiffle ball in into Fenway Park, complete with the Green Monster.