Baseball

The first warm, sunny days of February often awaken the old feelings I had for baseball. As a kid and all the way through my teen years, I couldn't wait to grab a glove, gather up a few friends and head for the old city park diamond, or anywhere with a backstop.
Now, I never was much of an athlete, but I had good timing when it came to swinging a bat. The first time I got into a game with a bunch of neighborhood kids, I hit a couple of home runs and was hooked.
Fueled by my success, I began to take an interest in professional baseball. I would tune my 6 transistor radio to the Houston Colt 45s on WRR in Dallas, or listen to the minor league, Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers on KRLD. If there was a late game, I'd sneek the radio under my pillow so I could listen well past the time a second grader should be asleep.
Baseball was the ideal pastime for a kid. There were 162 games to be played and lots of bubble gum cards to be collected. The 45s and Rangers would be eliminated from the pennant races by July, but that didn't matter. Every day was a new day and there was always another game.
Soon,spring training will be in full swing in Florida and Arizona as the teams get ready for another season to begin around the first of April.
The old game doesn't mean as much to me now as it did all those years ago, but these warm February days never fail to bring back twinges of the way things used to be.
News Editor, Rich Flowers