Some things change and some things never seem to change. I am an adult now (53% of the people who know me say I have finally reached that maturity level) and I have an 11 year old son who plays baseball. In Texas, if you want to play youth baseball, you have about 10 choices, between the Optimist leagues, YMCA leagues, city leagues and the dozens of select or club teams to play for. For me, there is only one choice for my son, which is the same when I was a child in Chaffee and back then, there was literally only one choice, Little League Baseball.

I am on the Board of Directors for our city's Little League and when ever I have to make a decision regarding rules, schedules, all stars, fundraisers or uniforms, I always base my principles on what I learned as a youth playing in the Chaffee Little League. Amazingly, so many memories from then help me make decisions 35 years later. My memories of Little League are so vivid since it was one of those pinnacles of my youth. In the early 70's, Chaffee had quite the youth baseball program. There was no "coach pitch" or T ball leagues. You started at age 9, but you knew if you wanted to be good, you starting preparing long before that. Whether that was wiffle ball in the back yard or playing catch with an older brother or sister, you came to that league ready to play.

We had 8 Little League teams and 4 Babe Ruth teams for the 13-15 year olds. Little League was age 9 to 12. Today, they split things into 9 and 10, or 11 and 12, but not in Chaffee in 1973. I had not yet turned 9, but my first year I was batting against players already 12. Pitchers like Randy Horrell, who threw so hard I tried bunting against him and flied out to shallow center. Kent Dopp was another 12 year old pitcher who threw a curve and a sinker. How was I supposed to hit these big kids? It was quite intimidating.

In our league, you knew most every kid on every team. The league was the place where we got to know some of the kids who didn't go to Chaffee Elementary but instead St. Ambrose Catholic School. I met one of my best friends in life through Little League. You also knew all the other coaches, you knew the sponsors of the team and you knew the parents. That is part of a close knit community. I played for the Astros. We were proud to have the only double knit (whatever that is) uniforms because our sponsor was Thorngates, the town's pants factory as we were explained about it. We played against the Cubs (maybe IGA sponsored?), the Cardinals (sponsored by Doris' Food Mart), the Mets, the Royals, the Pirates (sponsored by Associated Natural Gas with that blue flame) and I think the Giants and Reds or Braves or Phillies. The Babe Ruth teams were the Athletics, Yankees, Tigers and one other team I can't remember.

We only had 1 field for all youth baseball; even the Sr. Babe Ruth used the one field at Harmon Field. Before each game the infield was perfectly dragged and watered, and the foul lines were always razor straight. Beyond the third base dugout, a scoreboard stood that between innings somebody would go post the numbers. The water fountain was no fountain, it was a spigot like you have on the back of your house, mounted on a piece of iron 4 feet high, and pointed straight out so it you put it on full blast you could soak kids as they rode by on their bicycles. You had a concession stand that at the end of each game, the highlight was that some parent bought sodas for each player. You scrapped and saved your nickels because there was never a snow cone as good as the ones from the concession stand. You also got a free soda for turning in foul balls so we all shagged balls when we weren't playing. Even when you didn't have a game, you went to Harmon field to watch the other games as this was also the social spot in the town. One tradition that was interesting was the passing of the hat. Some kid was assigned to walk through the stands with their hat out to collect money for umpires. Hopefully the parents kicked in that money because kids needed every cent for that next snow cone. Almost like church, many parents had their certain spot they always sat on the bleachers. Those bleachers always had the green paint peeling, and you remember the years where they were given a new coat of paint. Kids sat at the top so they could jump off the back row to play tag if the game got boring.

About twice a season, a foul ball would hit one of the cars in the parking lot. The other memory clear to me was when the fogger came around. This was the city truck that sprayed fog, a lot of it, to control mosquitoes. As kids we didn't know better, we would run or ride bikes right behind the fogger. The smoke was so thick you couldn't see but that was part of the fun, even if it was impossible to breathe. It was our way of playing hide and seek. Today, we would freak out if our kids were anywhere near that truck but back then, it was cool. We occasionally also went to the swimming pool at night. You could go there and then baseball afterward.

I remember one nervous time for me with baseball was the tryouts. Each year, new players had to go through tryouts on a Saturday morning to demonstrate their skills and the coaches watched them and later that day, made their draft selections. Your family got the call that Sunday to tell you what team they were on. My brother was on the Astros and my dad was an assistant coach so I guess I got on that team automatically. Even today that "dad" rule is still part of the Little League. Soon after the draft, practices started. Chaffee wasn't full of places to practice, but we did our pre-season work on the Elementary playground fields. Not the best fields to take ground balls but we made it work. When the season was over, if you had a good year, you made the all-stars. That was so much fun because we got to travel. Usually just to Cape or Sikeston but you played new teams, had new team mates and often got to stop at McDonalds after games.

Another exciting baseball time was the annual tryouts for the Cincinnati Reds. I am not sure why the Reds came to Chaffee, I think because Bill Bradshaw was friends with Reds scout Chet Montgomery. Players from all over came to Chaffee to be timed on sprints, take a few swings, and show their fielding skills. Mr. Bradshaw I think even wore a Cincinnati uniform himself and helped with the tryouts. I don't know if the Reds ever found players at that tryout, but for a day, a hundred teenagers got their chance to chase their dreams. We lined the fences and stood in awe, anxiously waiting the day when we could tryout and maybe be a teammate to Johnny Bench.

Over the years, Chaffee added Chronister Field and Frisco Park fields, they added leagues for younger players, and they even added an electronic scoreboard in center field. I think they even made left field deeper because we all knew down the left field line that the sign said 287 and that gave hope to all wannabe power hitters. That is progress for you. The passion we had for baseball in Chaffee back then had to be a factor to why local baseball was so successful all those years, including state championships in Babe Ruth play, and at the high school level. Other towns knew, in Chaffee, baseball was always a big thing.