ink spots

This time of year the hope of spring time has dwindled down to a few hopes. The boys of spring are now the boys of autumn. The hot sweltering days of summer have given way to cool fall air. Long sleeve jerseys adorn the players now as they trot out on the diamond. the crack of the bat stings a bit more in the icy air of fall, no longer does the sweat roll off the brow and gallons of water are not consumed in buckets.

The playoffs are in full swing, bars roll to the swing of the bat, moans grumble out the door at the ball is caught and epitaphs swirl in the air as the bat slices through empty space. It is so much fun to toss the hard horsehide around, smack it with a bat, chase it across the field and hurl it to first base.

Baseball the all american sport that anybody can play and has been played in sand lots, asphalt jungles and pastures. The roar of the ball slicing over stretched arms to bounce off a tin can or roll through a cow patty.

It is amazing where ball fields have been built. The one in the corn filed is probably one of the more famous ones. Out across america one is liable to find a ball field in no where, which is where I found this grandstand.

The nearest town is that way over 10 miles and that away 50 miles and over there it is another 40 miles. Baseball was so popular that the pioneers/settlers built a ball park in a cow pasture by a sand creek. Lumber and materials was hauled by wagon but it was built and has stood for about a century.

Today it is not much more then a monument to man's determination to celebrate. Celebrate they did, There were holiday picnics and other games played until the start of the baseball game. Neighbors would bring their families and the visit would begin. children playing in the woods of the creek, people sitting in the grand stand visiting, men lounging under trees talking and teenagers getting antsy for the ball game.

It was a spectacle for the old settlers and their families. there was no television to watch the fall festivities back east someplace and electricity was in town so no radios. The telephone had just gotten off the drawing board and news traveled by singing wires or newspaper.

Here in the pasture there were no bright lights, no big money deals, just a few people getting together to celebrate life as it was dealt to then.

Today it is used for special occasions and there some people who look after it. Mostly it sits on the plains listening to the winds of time whistle through the rafters.