So, I got this idea stuck in my head a few weeks back. Kept thinking about baseball, like the old days, down by the river in my hometown. Not fancy league stuff, just a simple pickup game. Seemed easy enough, right?
Well, first thing was getting people together. Man, that was tougher than I thought. I hit up some old friends, the guys I used to play with back when. Sent texts, made some calls. Half of them were too busy, working or family stuff. The other half hadn’t picked up a bat in maybe ten years. Got a lot of “Yeah, maybe…” which usually means no.
I even tried posting on that local online group for our town. Got a couple of bites, mostly younger guys I didn’t know. So, it was a mixed bag. Took nearly two weeks just to get maybe, possibly, ten guys interested enough to say they’d show up.
Finding the Spot
Then there was the field. We always used that patch of grass down near the water, past the old mill. Not a real diamond, just open space. I drove down there one afternoon to check it out. Jeez, it was rough. Weeds everywhere, grass way too long. Looked like nobody had used it for anything in ages. Clearly, the town wasn’t keeping it up.
So, the Saturday before we planned to play, me and two other guys who were actually committed went down there. Spent a good three hours pulling weeds, mowing a rough baseline path with a push mower someone brought. We even raked out a home plate area. Found an old tire someone had dumped, dragged that out of the way too. It was sweaty work, let me tell you.
Getting the Gear
Next problem: equipment. My old glove was still in the garage, stiff but usable after some oil. Bats? I only had one cracked wooden one. Balls? Found three scuffed-up baseballs. Not gonna cut it.
- Had to ask around again.
- One guy, Dave, said he had a couple of aluminum bats in his shed.
- Another fella, Mike, dug up a bucket of balls used for practice, some were okay.
- Someone else brought a catcher’s mitt, though we didn’t really have a proper catcher.
It felt like putting together a puzzle with pieces from different boxes. Very makeshift.
Game Day
Finally, the day came. We said meet at 1 PM. By 1:30, we had nine guys. Good enough, I guess. We just picked teams right there, tossing a bat.
The game itself? It was exactly what you’d expect. Total chaos, haha. Pop flies dropped, easy grounders bobbled. Someone almost hit a ball into the river, which would’ve been the end of that ball. We laughed a lot. Nobody kept score seriously. We played maybe five or six innings before everyone was too tired or too hot.
But you know what? It was fun. Simple, like it used to be. Just guys out there, hitting a ball around on a patch of grass by the water. Took way more effort to organize than I figured, though. Made me think about how things change, how even simple stuff like a pickup game needs someone to actually push for it now. That river town baseball feeling, it’s still there, just gotta dig it out sometimes.
