The open field...

Sometimes when I stop to smell the roses,which is not very often, I might take a walk in the park.

Every now and then I'll see an empty baseball field and I think to myself, where are the children?

Oh yes, it's the time of the year when Little League fans are focused on the Williamsport LL World Series, but that's only a select few of the millions and millions of children in the world. I remember, as a young boy, I used to leave the house with a bat and glove and I'd walk to the nearest park.

Sometimes, I'd run into a gang of kids, just like me, waiting patiently to get enough players together for a game of workups. Chances were slim that we'd ever have 18 players...it would be more like five, six, maybe seven. But in workups everybody would get plenty of action. You'd get a chance to play the infield, the outfield and pitch. The trick, of course, was to stay up at bat as long as you could.

Once you made an out, you would trot out to an outfield position, or in some cases, you would switch with the player that caught your ball.You would then begin a rotation around the field until it was your turn to bat again. This would go on for hours and, of course, I'd be the last one to go home. I'd get some rest and trot over to the park the first thing the next morning.

Talk about the lazy days of summer. You just don't see the game of workups played anymore. You could blame the hot summer days, I guess. Back in the 50s, it didn't seem as hot in Tucson. More cement now, less grass. Kids are home playing video games. Everyone has a pool these days and the ones that don't can find a city pool to dip into.

I think it's such a shame, as I pass by an open field, that the kids aren't there. It cost very little. Maybe mom or dad would need to furnish their youngin' with a water bottle or two. Of course, not everyone loves baseball the way I do, but with the economy the way it is, it certainly seems like cheap entertainment. As I sit in the bleachers and look out over the baseball diamond, I think to myself, how many of these open fields have I played on in my life. The answer is plenty. The memories are many.

The game of workups...I remember it well.