Last call: Pickup baseball
So, here's the deal, kids. If you want to organize a pickup baseball game in your neighborhood, or at a rec field nearby, or if you are looking for players for a Sunday softball game or even a Wiffle Ball game, tell me about it -- give me the when, where and what time -- and try to give at least 24 hours' notice. I'll list it here and send it out on a new Twitter account called PickupBaseball. The story Greg Dunn tells in a recent column got me to this modest effort at promoting informal, just-show-up baseball the way we used to play it back in the day, and the way it was played before everything had to be so formal and organized, and before kids went indoors to enjoy the A/C and the video games, before we all got busy doing other things. . . . I guarantee there are kids in your neighborhood (maybe even your own children!) just itching for a game, especially this summer, after school lets out and the rec leagues are finished, and the spring rains stop and the fields dry out. . . . Then again, maybe not. Maybe pickup baseball is dead. Or maybe you can pull this off without me and Twitter . . . If so, go.
Comments
Just wanted to let you know that pick-up games (kickball, soccer, lacrosse, football, 4-square, flashlight tag, kick-the-can, you-name-it) are alive and well on our block in Anneslie. At any time, especially throughout the summer, we have a gaggle of kids running through the street on our dead-end block playing something. One of the reasons I love our neighborhood, and, especially, our block.
Posted by: Sheila | May 27, 2009 11:48 AM
I tweet about the neighborhood play life of my kids (4-1/2 and 1-1/2) and me every day (twitter: "playborhood"). Last weekend, I tweeted that my sons and I were playing bouncy ball in the street, and ten minutes later, a dad and his 3-1/2 year old daughter showed up.
Pickup ball is way more ambitious and way more important. I wrote an article about the benefits of pickup games at:
Playing Ball With No Adults Around
It's no contest. Pickup ball is better for kids. A better question is, how do we bring it and other kid-directed neighborhood play back? That's what my blog, Playborhood.com, is all about.
Posted by: Mike Lanza | May 27, 2009 5:16 PM