Baseball

I am an avid baseball fan. I like the game and what it stands for. Good clean fun. Sure I like pro ball...But it means much more. You must play for free before you understand it. The smells, the crack of the bat, the chatter, the personalities of the players, endurance and pure love of the game. I have a true story from colt league ( 13 -14 yrs old ). I played on a team that lost most of the time. We didn't gel until the last 4 or 5 games of the season. We won our last 3 games and played the best team in the playoffs and lost 14 to 13. That game was my best ever as far as memories go. It was my "natural".
It was the bottom of the last inning, we were losing 14 to 3. People were getting in their cars because it started to rain. People that had umbrellas stayed in the stands.
We scored 6 runs as we batted around. Errors were made by the opposition due to the rain and puddles were starting to form. The score was now 14 to 9. They walked a couple and an error was made, the base were loaded. Lightning was flashing along with the wind blowing. Rain was still coming down. I was up to bat. There was a train track about 300 feet from home plate, about 30 feet from the fence. Train was passing, adding to the drama... I think I took a couple of balls. Then I took a at least one strike. The 5th pitch was thrown and I hit the ball and I started running, as I passed 1st base, I looked up to see how far the ball went and it went through a box car that had both sides open. Rain really started to pour down. My teammates met me at the dugout and said, did you see that, the ball went through the box car. I thought it was an optical illusion, but I saw it right. The excitement of the home run was extinguished by thew next batter, who struck out to end the game. We played for free and risked our lives. That's what it's all about.