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Recreation
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City of Roswell
P.O. Drawer 1838
Roswell, NM 88202-1838
(505) 624-6700
Fax: 624-6889 |
THE LEISURE INCIDENT
"Life is like Baseball"
April 16, 2026
Mr. Kim Elliott, CPRP
Recreation Director
City of Roswell, NM
Springtime means baseball is here!
It seems to come around like clockwork. Yes, baseball is still America's
pastime.
This author grew up in Central Illinois playing
baseball. He played almost every day during the summer. When He was not doing
chores on the farm, he was playing baseball with his friends. He rode his
bicycle to his friends house which was about five miles down country roads where
he would get in their car with the rest of the "team" which happened
to be three brothers and on weekends their dad, and then they would drive into
town to the local baseball field. Hopefully we would be able to pick up a few
extra players to play, but many times it would just be the four or five of us
who would play a modified game of baseball.
The most important thing was that it was
baseball. We did not care if we had to modify the game. All we wanted to do was
to play. And play we did! Everyone would get to hit. Everyone would get to
field. Everyone would get to pitch. Everyone would get to throw.
That was baseball! It was fun! It was important
to our lives. We learned about life while having fun!
We learned that, unless we wanted to chase the
ball every time the pitcher threw a bad pitch, we had to swing and hit those
pitches that were thrown to us. You see, in our modified game, we very seldom
had a catcher to throw the ball back to the pitcher. If we wanted to play, we
had to learn to hit the ball, no matter where it ended up. Just because the
pitch might have been a little or a lot out of the strike zone, we had to deal
with what was thrown our way.
Life is like that! Very seldom does life give
us the perfect pitch. We have to learn to deal with the problems and the joys
that come our way. We have to hit what Life pitches in our direction.
Also, we had to learn how to hit the ball. Lots
of people hit the ball, but not everyone hits the ball into fair territory! We
had to learn to hit the ball where we wanted the ball to go. We had to learn to
control the ball. A baseball field is pretty good size for only 2-3 players on a
team to cover. Remember that in our modified game one person has to pitch and
the others have to field. We modified our game so that if you hit the ball to a
part of the field that was not "fair", the batter was out.
Life is like that! We learned to play in
"fair" territory. Even when you modify the rules, you still have to
play by the rules.
Playing by the rules was fun, no matter what
the rules would end up being. If we did not play by the rules, we did not play.
That was simple to determine. We risked the fellowship of the team. We risked
being branded a 'cheater'. We risked our friendship. We risked the game.
Life is like that! If we don't play Life by the
rules, we may get by for a while, but it will catch up to us and then we will be
'out'.
Fielding the ball was also a learning
experience. As with the pitch when hitting, the fielder very seldom got the easy
grounder to pick up. Sometimes the ball would be hit to our left. Sometimes the
ball would be hit to our right. Sometimes we would have to field the ball
running in and sometimes we would have to run like the dickens to catch up with
the ball hit over our heads. Very seldom did we get to field an easy grounder.
The playing field was not always maintained to the highest professional
standards! The ball would bounce this way and that and sometimes it would take a
'bad' bounce.
Life is like that! We learned that we always
had to be prepared to field the bad bounces.
The author learned a lot about life from the
game of baseball. It was fun and the lessons learned have stuck with him to this
day.
Yes, life is like baseball! Life is like all of
our leisure incidents. We can learn from our leisure incidents, if we pay
attention to them.
Remember! Parks and Recreation - The Benefits
Are Endless!TM
