Ken Burns - Baseball

I am not a fan of professional sports. I hate the reverence given to professional athletes that should be reserved for teachers and nurses and social workers. But for some reason I love documentaries about sports like the great one's Ken Burns makes - none more so than his nine part series about Baseball - each two hour episode taking up basically a decade of the game's history.

If you have never seen it you have missed on a magical examination of something we all played as kids. I loved to put on the uniform every spring. Nothing quite felt as cool as wearing a baseball uniform and I loved how the glove felt all worked in.

Our team once got beat 82 to nothing because the rules only allowed nine runs an inning. We got a standing ovation by the American fans because we never gave up. By the end they were cheering ANY good plays we made.

I played third base like my dad and for some reason us guys all played the same position as our fathers. Every unit at the base had a team. The coolest thing in the summer was going to games to watch our dad's play and eat hot dogs and buy 'fifty fifty' tickets where we could win fortunes just like the grown ups.

I made a bat once for a girl I loved then destroyed it right in front of two teams and a crowd of spectators because she gave that bat to another guy.

Some of my fondest memories are playing with the sun going down until the porch lights went on and it was time to go in. The field was right behind our house.