WHEN YOU PLAYED; LITTLE LEAGUE

[jwoody]

EACH WEEK OR SO A NEW TOPIC, LITTLE LEAGUE, BABE RUTH, JV, VARSITY BASEBALL ETC..A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE LEAGUE, EQUIPMENT ETC.
I PLAYED LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL IN 1957..IN A SMALL TOWN WE HAD 4 TEAMS,USED WOODEN BATS, 1 NEW BALL FOR EACH GAME..NO SIGN UP FEES, RECEIVED A SMALL GRANT FROM THE TOWN. I USED A THREE FINGER PMM RAWLINFS GLOVE. MY FAVORITE POSITION WAS PITCHER.

[MTGLOVEGUY]

my first year of organized ball, t-ball, was in 1976. Where I was on one of the 50 or so teams that made up the Braddock Road Youth Division(Springfield, VA) Ahh I remember it like it was yesterday, no that was that was one of my boys soccer games. I cant remember much other then we played a lot of games and used those cheap thin bases (I remember this because I used to always dive into them and the base kept sliding farther and farther away, and my folks always telling me it was t-ball you dont have to slide). Wooden bats of course and the cheap Gloves from Ben Franklin, or Dart Drug. Good times!!!!! now I am reliving it with my own kids, except the cheap part.

[offsidewing]

This could be the "back in my day..." thread.

My little league days were during the mid-80's. The only aluminum bats were the 3 1/2" diameter green-lettered harpoons that Easton made, or the 1 3/4" diameter palm-stingers that Louisville put out. It wasn't until circa 1987 that Easton introduced "ULTRA-LITE's" to the world.

We laughed at the kids with the brown mesh backed Mizuno gloves from Sears. Saranac made the sweetest batting gloves you could buy and thanks to the fat kid stranded on second base, you always got stuck with the XS sized batting helmet with the choker tight chin strap.

Snack was always a can of coke and a king sized snicker bar, there wasn't 3 innings a game where you didn't have someone else's hat on by mistake, and the umps made 4 bucks a game.

My son is in T-ball now and it will be much different for him when he gets into 9/10 ball.

[Cowboy7130]

Late 1960's - Early 1970's, West Texas --

The light poles were surplus telephone poles donated to the city and the league.

At least one bank of lights per game would fail to come on, or would flicker out during a game, leaving either left or right field in a state of sem-darkness. Even with all the lights on, the field was not nearly as illuminated as we parents demand it to be, now, for the sake of our kids' safety.

Portions of the fence were chicken-wire, and not chain-link.

Team uniforms were owned by the league, were the baggy flannels, and were issued to each player at the beginning of the season in the "majors" division. Minors and farmboys played in jeans and T-shirts. Caps were flannel with elastic backs, and then polyester with elastic backs. We bent the brims "barn-roof" style.

Gloves were widely varied. Mine were always junk. I remember teasing the first baseman on our team who had the audacity to actually show up with a first base mitt.

[wjr953]

I started playing LL ball in the "Minor League" in 1961, I was eight years old. Our two fields were two wide open areas, flat as a pancake with not one blade of grass unless you hit the ball really, really deep. Lots and lots of rocks though. The "fields" are now the parking lot for the Red Sox Triple A affiliate in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Back then McCoy Stadium (home of the longest game ever played in baseball, 33 innings), was not occupied by any professional teams. The corrugated tin outfield fences behind our backstops had huge holes in them through which the players would have to climb to find some "privacy" when relieving themselves. If we needed a drink of water, we would have to walk through one of the many holes in the fence (which was the deepest part of CF inside McCoy), and then all the way (seemed like miles) to the drinking fountain in the 1B or 3B dugouts. Our games usually ran late into the night, that is until it was too dark to even SEE a brand new baseball, never mind hit it or catch it. Final scores of 36-35, were quite common. No time limits or mercy rule. Our uniforms were woolen hand me downs, which were brutally hot to wear in the summertime. These uniforms had been sewn, and re-sewn and re-sewn again. Back then sponsors name were sewn on placards on the back of the uni. Every time the sponsors changed, all of the unis had to be changed. Between adjusting those unis that were designed to fit 10, 11 and 12 year old kids, to fit 7, 8 and 9 year old kids, repairing all of the rips and tears from game play, and the annual sponsor changing, these were piles of rags by the time we got them. All of that sewing sure kept the Moms busy, that's for sure. Boy, we sure were thrilled to have those uniforms, what a thrill to put it on for the first time! lol As far as quality of play, well 40-50 walks a game were fairly normal. Hits were few and far between but when they did happen, it was like a modern day version of the 3 Stooges times 10! Despite the fact that we had private bathroom "facilities", we had one kid on our team that peed his pants every single game, without fail. When this would happen, we kids would make him sit in the empty wooden helmet basket because we didn't want to get any places on our tiny little wooden bench wet. To say the least, it was an experience that I'll never forget. We didn't actually see any grass on any of our ball fields until my last year in LL. Dust devils held up game action on many a day. Wooden bats, those weird ear flap only helmets. Catchers were required to wear a protective cup, even back then. I was one of the lucky two catchers on my team! lol Boy did I ever hate wearing a cup. I also got to put on all of that catching gear on top of those woolen unis during those 95 degree days in the summer. It's a wonder we ever learned anything about the game.

[jwoody]

Our field had a home run line, over in the air was a homer on the ground was a double, no fences..We would borrow gloves and not everyone got a uniform. We sat on the ground between home and third or first and third. The parents were well behaved...NEXT WEEK PONY LEAGUE, 13-14 ...

[softball66]

I played in the first Little League doubleheader in Greenville, Texas in 1950.
We played in the professional park there with a temporary LL net fence. Very imposing of course.
Oddest play with my team on defense was a bases-loaded ground ball, through our infield and hopping into the outfield and DOWN our left fielder's
shirt (he was bent down to field the ball in an oversized jersey). I was at shortstop and didn't see where the ball went. He was reaching into the back of his jersey and thrashing around. I ran out and pulled his shirt out of his pants, out dropped the ball. Batter got a grand slam! You read it here.
Glove I used? A Mort Cooper MC. Just kidding, don't remember. Elvis, by the way, used an MC.

[robin_buckeye]

We didn’t have Little League in Vandalia, Ohio when I was a kid in the 50’s, but there was a youth baseball league with three divisions -- minors, majors and “E League” for boys (no girls in those days) ages 6 or 7 up to about 14 or 15. The minors and majors played at Edgewood Park, right behind my house. Foul balls from one of the fields came into our backyard all the time.

Uniforms were a hat and t-shirt for minors, while the majors and E League got one of the old classic baggy flannel uniforms – hat, pants, shirt and stirrups. Everyone kept their hats, and the minors kept their shirts as well, the rest belonged to the league.

I remember playing for Lewis Brothers’ Market, Smedley’s Chevrolet and Birchfield’s Sinclair -- none of which exist now.

Equipment – wood bats of course and it wasn’t unusual to use a taped, glued and/or nailed bat during games. My glove was a MacGregor G29 Robin Roberts. Bases were canvass-covered, I think with sawdust filling.

No tees or coach pitch for the younger kids, which lead to many, many walks. Years after I played they tried a rule change were there were no walks so the kids either hit or struck out. A plate appearance could last for many minutes until the pitcher finally threw three strikes (there were umpires and called strikes).

I went to Catholic School, St. Christopher, and played on our Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) baseball team in 7th & 8th grade. We played all our games at Kettering Field in Dayton.

After E League (which ended about after freshman year) you could play for the High School Team or there was a county league where you traveled around maybe 15 or 20 miles from home for games. I did the county league as I really disliked the HS coach and didn’t want to play for him. He had also coached teams in the youth league and was always yelling at players (his and the other teams’) and umpires – you could get away with that in those days. My cousin played for him on many different teams and really liked him, though, so maybe he wasn’t all bad.

[edingc]

Well mine is more recent, but here it goes:

In 1997 my town didn't have a Little League charter yet so the township formed a league of local teams and we played 8 games a season. As a second grader this was my first baseball experience as I had not played tee ball.

Second and third grade were machine pitch leagues, and we played with those yellow dimpled machine balls that just flew off the bat. If I remember correctly, I think I had 4 inside the park home runs in third grade. We played on full-sized softball fields that had no grass so the ball would just roll out to the fence if no one stopped it. The most runs one team could score in an inning was 5 -- I remember a lot of 30-30 ties.

By fourth grade we were allowed to pitch, but we still played only those 8 games a season. In middle school (7th and 8th grade), we played out of town teams on regulation fields, but if I remember correctly there was no stealing or advancing on passed balls.

My glove of choice back then was a Wilson Jim Rice Signature Model (2nd-6th Grade) and a Rawlings Tony Gwynn Signature Model (7th Grade through early parts of high school ball). I'm pretty sure the bat to have was the Worth Copperhead, only because it had the snake skin paint job.

I was the head coach of a 13-14 year old Little League team from my area last summer and everything has changed so much. They now have an official Little League charter and by 7th grade you're playing high school type ball, with exception to certain pitch count limits.

[rosajr]

Hi guys,
Played Little league from 1961-1965 in New paltz, NY. There was one ballfield in the village and during LL they put up a green wooden snow fence around it for the HR line. There were 8 teams, 4 national, 4 american and we played one evening a week. All games were played during the summer, not like today. Most families didn't go on a vacation so there were always enough players. I played for the Dodgers and wore number 8. We played for the championship one year but were beaten by the Red Sox. I believe I used a Revelation (western auto hardware) Mickey Mantle glove. I mostly pitched and played outfield, but even though I was left handed, I still got to play every position except catcher. It was some fun times. Still have my uniform, my daughters used it for halloween costumes growing up.

Jim

[robin_buckeye]

I meant to mention this in my post above, but it was getting too long as it was.

Although I played in organized leagues, most of the ball I played as a kid (and I'm also talking about football and basketball) in the late 50s and early 60s were just pickup games -- a bunch of kids from the neighborhood who carried their gloves and/or balls with them most of the time. We'd play in each others' yards or go over to the park. We'd play on a practice field near the regular fields before and after our formal games.

Sometimes we'd get in trouble for getting our uniforms dirty before our "official" games.

All this was done without any adult involvement. My boys, ages 8 and 10, have never played any ball (ANY!) without adult involvement. I think that they are interested but there are never any other kids to play with. Parents seem to be afraid to let their kids out on their own.

I pass by our local parks frequently, there are baseball fields there and other open areas. If I see any kids playing soccer, football or baseball, there will always be an adult present. I do occasionally see some high school kids playing basketball alone, but never any younger kids.

[mrh64]

I had totally forgot about the revalation gloves from western auto! What a blast from the past that was. By the way did anyone ever have a glove from a company called Newport? They used to sell them at Ben Franklin 5 and 10 stores.

[rosajr]

I remember playing all those pickup games everyday during the summer. When we couldn't field nine guys, somebody from the team up at bat would catch and you would have invisible men on base and a lefty couldn't hit to left field and a righty couldn't hit to right, etc. The con about organized ball is that if you play say 12 games and you are good enough to play all 7 innings or 5, what do you get up, say, 3-4 times a game, so that equals 36-48 atbats and you are done. We might get up about 20 times on one afternoon with a pickup game. You might even learn to switch hit so the fielders wouldn't have to rotate, boy, you talk about eating and breathing baseball....