In Charlie’s baseball game yesterday, a runner from third was heading home when the catcher received a throw from the outfield and took about five steps up the baseline to tag the runner out.
The runner, seeing the catcher standing on the baseline, slowed down and surrendered himself to the tag.
“Out,” the catcher shouted.
My thought:
When I played baseball, that catcher would have been plowed over in an attempt to knock the ball out of his glove. I would’ve done everything in my power to destroy that catcher to separate him from that ball.
It would’ve been my favorite moment of the game.
I played catcher in Little League because I loved blocking the plate, colliding with runners, turning baseball into a contact sport, and insulting batters in the most horrific ways as they tried to focus on the incoming pitch.
None of this happens today.
Times have certainly changed.
For the better? Maybe. I’m not sure.
Nothing demonstrates this change of times better than this remarkable website, featuring kids engaged in bike jumping in the 1970s —an activity I remember well. Admittedly, the kids in these photos have elevated bike jumping to an art. I famously rode my bike off the barn roof, but compared to some of these photos, that seems tame by comparison.
YOU MUST check out this website. It’s incredible.
So, too, were the 1970s and 1980s. An entirely analog, more dangerous, more unruly, and more fun time to be a child.
