It's April -- baseball season is here

The 2015 baseball season has just begun, and the pastime of my youth has fired my love once more. From our American League Champion, and World Series runner up, Kansas City Royals, to our local baseball and softball teams, there is more than enough action to whet my "Play Ball," appetite.

I have been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember. As a kid I lived for baseball season. Unlike today, when the Royals and the Cardinal games are on television every night and weekend, in my youth, there was only a televised game on Saturdays.

Every Saturday NBC aired the "Game of the Week." Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese, were the legendary commentators. Those episodes were classics. Dizzy used some of the worst grammar ever heard on radio, but no one cared.

The Falstaff beer commercials were another highlight of the production. The "Old Pro and Elwood," were comedy characters that made millions laugh and buy beer.

We didn't wait until April for baseball. In the weeks leading up to the end of school, we all began playing regularly during school recess. Before and after school we had "work-up games" all over the neighborhoods.

If there weren't enough players for teams, that didn't stop us. Games like "500" or "Indian" were common replacements. If you had only three or four players a game of "hot box," was always available.

Many an early morning, my next door neighbor, Johnny Allison, and I would be out front on the sidewalk playing catch until time for school. Even if there was no one else around, I used to bounce balls off the concrete wall beside my Grandparent's driveway, to practice catching grounders.

Baseball was important and consuming then, and while I am not able to play the game anymore, my pleasure and passion for the game, have not wavered.

In my youth, the little leagues were not gender integrated. We were a bit ahead of our time at our South Washington field. The Amos Wight home located on the half block between Cedar and Washington streets, and bordered on the south by Wight Street, had a great open corner lot.

I remember that field every time I watch the cult classic movie, "The Sandlot." In our neighborhood, it was our own "Field of Dreams." Games could be found there just about everyday during the summer months.

As I stated, these games were not just for the boys in the neighborhood. We had several girls who played all the neighborhood sports with us, and some of them would have been tremendous athletes, if Nevada schools had offered girls athletics back then.

Often during a break from the ball field, we would trek to Cox's Market, which was just two blocks away. We would buy soda, candy, bubble gum, and baseball cards.

Inevitably an argument would evolve about some of the current major league players or teams. Like well-prepared lawyers, we presented a variety of statistics. Most of us knew the batting averages of many of the players, as well as how many home runs they had.

Yes baseball was a huge part of our lives. In the past couple of years, I have heard a foreboding lament, that baseball is loosing its popularity among the youth of today.

The experts claim that the games are too slow and take to long. They further state that the young kids of today are turning away from the game. To that, my simple opinion and reply is "BALDERDASH!"

If there is a drop off in the baseball and softball interest for our youth, it is not because they don't like it, it is because they are not being exposed to it. I have yet to see kids of today not enjoy playing or watching a good game of the "American Pastime."

Just yesterday, the Kansas City Royals had a dramatic come from behind victory over the Oakland A's. This weekend Kauffman Stadium was filled with over 35,000 for each of the three home games.

When our new player Kenderick Morales hit a two run, go ahead double in the bottom of the eighth inning, the stands erupted just like the did when I was there for the winning hit in the sixth game of the World Series last October.

More importantly, I noticed all the kids in the stands jumping up and down in excitement and pure joy. These kids ranged from just a few years old to teenagers. Don't tell me they don't understand the game of baseball. Don't tell me they think that an exciting game that goes deep into the late innings is dull or boring.

Some things change but not our pastime. It's not going to fade, and I have faith in the youth and our country. Here is the best way it can ever be said, in the following text from the movie "Field of Dreams," spoken by James Earl Jones:

"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."