Baseball is perhaps the most popular topic of sports writing.  There is something about the game that lends itself to literary devices.  Books, magazines and other forms of publishing can be found on most shelves related to the great game.  Maybe it is how we play it on lazy afternoons.  Perhaps some of it is just the living history of characters down through the years.  I would wager some expert already thought about this to put it down in written form somewhere.  Even writers such as Stephen King have books based on the sport of baseball.  We never cease to find new meaning in the old game.

I played the game when growing up.  No one will accuse me of being good but I do think it was my best sport.  Sunday newspapers would have a section with the statistics on every player in batting and pitching.  For me it was like manna from heaven every week.  Those were the days when not every single game was on television somewhere.  You had to plan around the game each week to be sure you saw it.  I always say that if God offered me the chance to be even an above average ballplayer that I would take it. 

Coaching baseball was also fun for me.  I had a few teams in pitching machine as well as regular baseball.  Most of the kids were a little older so we got to do a few things with them.  This year is a whole new challenge.  Someone asked if I would help coach in the T-Ball league.  These kids are from 4-6 years old.  No pitching is involved as they hit off a tee set up for them.  One practice was all it would take for me to realize that in this league coaching means doing a lot of babysitting.  I was trying to instruct a player on how to stand or something like that.  He just looked up at me to tell me that he is 4.  It was then reality struck that this was a whole new ballgame. 

Spending time with young kids is always a treat for me.  They are still innocent without the hardness life brings to some.  You can get down to the basics of life since they do not bear the weight of stress or expectations.  One word that comes to mind is the word possibility.  Nothing is yet impossible for them.  We have not taught them yet how life is ugly at times.  They are not yet stuck with a stereotype about their looks or abilities.  No one has yet told them that you must paint in the lines or else be different from others which becomes a horrible fate to bear.  They just laugh and do their best while we applaud them for any effort.  If only we could do with each other as we do with them.  We might just have a better world.

Bro. Trey