The late great Chicago Cub Ernie Banks has been quoted by many over the years, “It’s a great day for baseball; let’s play two.”
We are in the midst of Little League baseball and softball playoffs and nothing brings me back more that Little League baseball.
Now that I get to cover games, it’s just a great feeling to see these young boys and girls out there trying their darnedest to get the job down and win for their team, family and friends.
I have to say, Little League has come a long way in so many areas, but yet I feel they took a step back as well.
Gone are the wooden bats and sneakers, composite bats and spikes have replaced them.
Gone are the woolen uniforms, man, I can still feel my skin itch from them especially on a hot day.
Nowadays, with material used for uniforms being so inexpensive, players get to have their names on the uniforms even getting to keep them after the season. Can you imagine that?
All we got to keep at the end of the year was our hats.
Batting gloves, personal bats, baseball backpacks, specialized spikes, and expensive bats – all make up today’s gear of a Little Leaguer.
Even though a baseball glove is a glove, I can imagine the cost in purchasing one today. I was lucky enough my Godfather and Uncle Tony Callaio bought me my glove in Little League and I ended up using it my entire baseball career through teeners league through high school.
It was a bit big for my hand when I was 11-years-old, but my hand slowly grew into it and by the time I reached high school, I was using one of the smallest gloves on the team. I didn’t really care. I had a Carl Yastrzemski signature glove and my dad bought me a fat handled Al Kaline 32 oz. bat.
Yes, a 32 oz. bat was a big bat even for a 12-year-old and that may explain why a lot of my hits were never pulled to the left side of the field, but I loved that bat.
I kept that bat for as long as I could until I cracked it. Of course in those days, you got a few short nails, tacked them in strategic spots, wrapped electrical tape over the nails and you were back in business.
Today, the umpires inspect every single piece of equipment on the field that the boys and girls use.
This past week, one of the boys from Township baseball couldn’t use his helmet because there was a small hairline fracture in the plastic. Sheesh, you practically needed a magnifying glass to see it.
One thing that didn’t change is the proud parents and grandparents in the stands. No matter what game I photo, the voices are the same, but the faces and names change.
The calls of encouragement, boos of a bad call, the cheers for a home run, it’s all the same.
The banter from each player is the same. It’s funny hearing an 11-year-old call a teammate kid.
“C’mon kid, you can do it!” “Let’s go kid, he’s got nothing on you!”
That’s usually what I hear inside the dugout. The field players are usually quiet.
That wasn’t the case for me in my day. “C’mon out there, let’s hear a little chatter,” our coach would yell.
We’d have to holler it up to our pitcher. “Let’s go Paulie, he’s a big fish, let’s go, let’s go!”
Yeah, I don’t get the whole fish reference, but whoever was batting was that, a big fish.
Another difference I noticed in today’s player from yester-year is, they are more emotional that we were. I see a lot of upset kids if they strike out to the point of tears. As the saying goes, “There’s no crying in baseball.”
Yeah, that kind of shocks me when I see a player tearing up for striking out or giving up a hit or a run or for God’s sake, a home run.
Okay, I get it when tears flow after a loss, that’s natural, but I don’t recall ever doing that when I played. Not that I didn’t care, because I did, but crying at a game wasn’t something we ever did in my age bracket.
I think I only saw it once when I was 12-years-old, but this kid cried at a happy ending to a movie, so I’ll attribute it to just be a super emotional bloke.
It’s been so much fun being on the sidelines capturing the action and knowing I’m making a lot of people happy, well on the winning side anyway.
It was always so cool to have your name in the paper, but even better when your picture was in.
That too never happened much because there wasn’t a lot of newspaper coverage back then, not like today.
When I made all-stars when I was 12-years-old, my parents decided to take the family vacation during all-star break, so when we had our official team photo, at the very end of the caption: “Absent from photo: Tony Callaio.” Makes my heart sad.
Oh yeah, the thing where Little League took a step backwards, the season starts way to early and is over at the end of June. That’s just wrong.
Quote of the week
“You never know what’s going to happen… And that’s the fun of it! That’s what baseball’s all about.” – Keiichi Arawi, Japanese artist
Thought of the week
“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.” – Yogi Berra
Bumper sticker
“Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.” – Leo Durocher
