Field of Dreams

So OK - I've been out of sports writing for what seems like forever but as baseball season nears (both for the Red Sox and my son's Little League season), I have volunteered to write "game summaries" for my son's team and I have to say I am getting pretty damned excited.

I used to cover Little League baseball and to tell you the truth, I genuinely enjoyed my beat. The kids clamored to talk to the "reporter" and many times, I was invited to sit in the dugout. To those 9 and 10 year olds, I was ancient at 28 years old. But I never ran out of my supply of quotes because those kids never ran out of things to say.

Field of Dreams hadn't been made back in those days and neither had The Rookie or A League of Their Own. I dreamed of growing up and becoming a baseball player - I never wanted to be anything else. Barbie dolls? Ha - they were used for batting practice (heads on, of course). Girly frilly lacy dresses? Yuck. Bring me my dirty sneakers and my glove. Of course my father shot down all my dreams when he had the audacity to tell me that girls couldn't play baseball. So I figured the next best thing to playing (and staying as close to the sport as possible) was writing about the game.

I started writing when I was about 11 years old. I'd watch the Red Sox games and write my own stories. I had a paper route and I knew the driver of my route truck wrote sports stories for the newspaper. So I showed him my stuff, and he showed my stories to the sports editor and when I went to high school, I already had a job: Five bucks a story covering my high school sports.

The girls hated my guts because I hung around their boyfriends solely because they were always talking to me to try and secure their place in my game stories.

I loved my job, I loved being able to write but most of all, I loved it when a kid I wrote about went on to become a successful athlete or coach. It was kinda cool saying "hey, I knew him when ..."

My son wants to work at NASA someday. Sure, when I found out I was having a boy 10 years ago, all I could think of was that maybe someday he'd bring me home a REAL World Series ring and of course, I'd set the rules early: He could NOT play for the New York Yankees because that would be - heavens - sacrilegious!!!!

But as my son got older, the stars, the planets, the universe and the Hubble Telescope held his interest. Baseball became fun to him and actually, I don't mind.

Because maybe someday my son will grow up and be the first person to land on the moon and toss a baseball. Or something.

Whatever he ends up doing, baseball will always have been a part of both of our lives. But for now, it's just the AAA Rays starting their season soon and my son will be a part of that team.

And I get to write about baseball again.

Doesn't get any better than that.