Here we are, into the month of June and the young kids are out of school for the summer (not ours, of course, theyre long out of school). I dont know why, but I got to thinking this morning how much I enjoyed summer vacation as a young kid growing up in Nebraska. Actually, I loved summer vacation for a lot of reasons. But one of them was my love for baseball. To say I ate, drank and slept baseball as a young kid, might have been an understatement! On a daily basis, I listened to Major League baseball on the radio - Harry Carey and Jack Buck from beautiful Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis (yes, before Harry Carey moved to Chicago) and Halsey Hall and Herb Carnille doing the Minnesota Twins. As a kid, thats all I wanted to do when I grew up - be a Major League baseball play-by-play announcer. It might be outa here...It could be...It is...a Home Run! All of us kids in the neighborhood collected and traded Topps baseball cards and even the cut out cards from the back of Post Toasties boxes (how many of you remember those?). My two teams were the Braves and the Giants (Ive never figured out why I liked two teams in the same league). My prized baseball cards were Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews, Lew Burdette, and Warren Spahn. Our family always purchased the Family Passes to the American Legion baseball games. We didnt have a lot of money when I was growing up, and those Legion baseball games were our summer entertainment. I idolized those Legion players - Sanders, McDermott, Switoviak, Furby, Chuck and Dave Rombach, Luebbe, etc. There used to be HUGE crowds at the games, and Grand Island always had one of the best teams in the state. It was such a thrill to see our local heroes beat those teams from Lincoln and Omaha, and even the teams that traveled through from out-of-state! And those sandlot baseball games at Buechler Park in Grand Island. We were so fortunate to grow up in a neighborhood with a lot of kids. It was never an issue finding enough kids, on a hot summer afternoon, to assemble 10-15 boys for a game of baseball at the park. We chose a couple of captains, tossed a bat into the air to one of the captains, who caught the shaft of the bat near the handle, and the two of them moved up the bat, one hand at a time, until finally, one of the captains couldnt get a grip on it any more. Thats how we decided which captain got to pick the first player to join his team. I was typically chosen towards the end, as I wasnt necessarily a great player, but I really didnt care. It was all fun! And those whiffle ball games, either in the street or in OBriens driveway! When we had a lot of kids, we played in the street, using the manhole as home plate and the intersecting rubber tarred lines as bases. If we only had a few kids, it was off to OBriens driveway for a game of one-on-one or two-on-two. Hit the ball Into the street on the fly (those huge elm trees at the end of the driveway made it difficult), and it was a home run! Into the street on one hop was a triple, etc. If the pitcher or fielder got to the ball before it got to the street, the batter was out. And dont forget, you had to force your runners around the bases! I honestly feel sorry for young boys growing up today. Do they get to share in these type of summer vacation experiences? I grew up on West First Street in Grand Island and I would venture to say that there were 30-40 kids who grew up in a two or three block area around our home. We always had something fun going on during summer vacation. What wonderful memories!
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 14:30:25 +0000
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