Favorite Sport or Outdoor Activity

Without any question, my favorite sport was baseball and I would do just about anything to be outside and playing ball. From my earliest memories, I can remember having a bat in my hands and playing catch, throwing ball, or practicing somehow. I used to take a rubber ball and bounce it off of the steps in my backyard and practice catching it on short hops or pop flies. I would take the ball and throw it onto our roof and then wait for it to pop off and catch it in the air. I would turn my back on the ball and the spin around to try and catch it quickly - trying to make my reaction time quicker and catch it without knowing where it was going. My dad and I used to play this game called "Nine Pitch" in our backyard. We measured off the exact distance for a pitcher and he would get down in a catcher's stance on the sidewalk and I would pitch to him. The object of the game was to get 9 straight strikes and end the inning with three outs. That didn't happen too often and I remember being aggrivated at my Dad's strike zone calls! I felt like he was squeezing me! In the summer months, we would always play wiffle ball or Indian ball. We never went anywhere without our gloves tucked on the handlebars of our bikes. We would go up to Blanchette Park and play Indian Ball for hours. We also had a game called "500" and would play it all afternoon too. We would add all different elements of difficulty to try and make it harder to score points. One time, we went up to Blanchette Park to play Indian Ball - it was me, Allen and his two brothers - Michael and David. The four of us went up there and got into a fight with Brian Robinson who tried to steal Allen's wallet while we were playing ball. We had to chase him down and tackle him on the field. I was the fastest of the four of us and I caught up to Brian first but I was not the fighter. I tackled him and did my best to hold him down until the others could arrive and help out. Lots of great memories playing ball and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I started playing organized ball when I was 5 and played in the Atom Division in St. Charles City League. I played for the "County Bank" team and played for a guy named Bill Wehde - he was our manager and my Dad was one of the coaches. We won the division and the championship that year and I was hooked. They tried to teach me how to switch hit because I was so fast that they wanted to use me from the left side of the plate so that I could have an extra step or two to first base. I was not a good left handed hitter but I got hit by the pitch a lot and so I got to be on first base a lot. Which then allowed me to steal second - a lot! Lots of great memories playing ball and lots of tremendous friendships developed on the field and in the dugouts with some of my best friends on this planet.

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