I shot the pictures I’m posting today at our community Farmers’ Market last Saturday, but the smiling, energetic kid faces take me back to a time 20 years ago when my son played on a youth baseball team.
The kids in that baseball league (both boys and girls played on the teams) were around 10-years-old. My son had two heroes at the time who played for the Seattle Mariners: Catcher Dave Valle and second baseman Harold Reynolds. When my son’s coaches asked him what position he’d like to play in the field, my son said he’d like to split his time between catcher and second base.
When my son and his teammates would go up to bat, the main coach would remind the kids to choke-up on the bat, to wait for a good pitch, to have a nice, easy swing. What I remember most vividly, however, was that there was an assistant coach who, once our kids were dug in at the plate and were staring intently at the pitcher, would yell to our batters to “Smile!” There was, in my mind, something just a tad incongruous about the timing of that assistant coach's cheery advice, but apparently that fellow was all about wanting the kids to play the game for fun. One could not fault his good intentions.
Anyway, the happy faces in the pictures you see here remind me of that time, 20-some years ago. That memory -- and these pictures -- have me grinning.
