The Big Race

Sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself!

The posts this past week have really been thought provoking for me and that's always dangerous!

About Sammy and Barry, that ol' word "IF" can really be applied in cases like theirs. Living in NorCal, I guess I'm so tired of seeing and hearing about the "Great" Barry Bonds, my vision is cloudy.

But I find it totally amazing that everyone is so caught up in Bond's HR heroics, they forget that Sammy is 5 years younger, historically a much more prolific HR hitter and he's only 100 or so behind Bonds! Given his history, he is likely to be at 700 when he's 38 which really boggles the mind!

I've always been in total agreement with you about when a kid should start playing "organized" ball. I didn't start LL until I was 11 in 1958. Of course I probably played more baseball by that time than any 2 kids do today, but that was then and this is now.

I'd just like to see the kids learn that baseball is a "game" and that it can be fun to play for just being a silly game without having to worry about anything other than that.

Every once in a while when my son gets in a position to just play and enjoy the game rather than worrying about every single pitch and what the consequences are, I must admit its a totally different kind of enjoyment I get from watching. I miss seeing that kind of playing just because its fun.

Yeah, that money thing kinda gets in the way of a lot of good things, but fortunately, there are other opportunities, like a good team coach or just a good neighbor like what RAD did. Its too bad that there is a much greater demand than can be filled. And, its too bad that often, even spending the bucks buy nothing but trouble because the guy's a dud!

As for fun, its not that I don't think all of the kids have fun. But, there are different kinds of fun. Its definitely fun to win and play good baseball while working hard to get better. My favorite kind of fun is when the whole purpose of playing is to just kill time and play.