Baseball Playground Rules

Leadership roles were assumed by the better playing athletes.

Baseball playground rules on the school grounds at recess was the stuff of baseball playing dreams. Going to grammar school in the country at recess time was the best life a boy or girl could hope for.

Ball players growing up enjoying the game with the teenagers and young adults you were taught and it come sort of natural the habit of saying, "Yes Maam, No Maam", and "Yes Sir" while respecting your elders and the authorities in the neighborhood.

This baseball playground rules at our achool had a lot to do with contributing to this growing up respectful attitude.

All of the nuances of who played, and when and what position were part of individual development and in some cases, prowess or toughness as well as abiding by the dictates of the older boys or girls.

This subtle underlying fact of ability, plus determined effort, dictated the means by which baseball playing future stars were made.

History played a significant role in develpment of the norms for the baseball playground rules. Early years of the game, specifically prior to the War Years of World War II, baseball equipment such as gloves, bats,and baseballs, was almost nonexistent for the general public.

Many baseball playground rules just like the written general rules of baseball just evolved over time and simply became our everyday without question our baseball playing rules.

This was especially true for rural America....

This brief overview sets the stage of my continuing conversation of baseball playground rules and official baseball game rules.

Move fast forward to our game of baseball played now under the auspices of Little Leagues Rules and Regulations and the dictates of the Little League Baseball Rule Book. Now we have a virtual nightmare with rules about rules and to mention Little League pitching rules will make us old timers shutter.

Baseball playground rules would actually start before the teams were chosen. Fair is fair so even up the sides, Okay ?

How Did We Choose The Sides?

The natural order of things dictated that the two (2) best players would be the ones who would actually do the choosing of the respective teams.

This allowed opposing sides for play to be balanced and with an equal chance at determining the winner of the game by the baseball playground rules of baseball.

You see these two best players were actually a part of our own making the baseball playground rules.

Everyone on the playground as well as everyone in the surrounding community knew who the two best players were.

Okay that sounded logical, but the evolution of the game and baseball terminology nor any of the basic baseball rules of baseball would determine who had the first choice for his team?

Here is one of the baseball playground rules of baseball (written no unwritten yes). Maybe it's not a baseball rule but it was how we did it.

1. Someone would gently toss the bat (vertical) to one of the players, and where his hand caught the bat, was a starting place at his fist. The other chooser, or if you will, other team captain, would place his fist on top of, and grip the bat above the first mans fist.

Alternating fist grips one on top of the other till neither could grip the bat. The last one gripping the bat would toss the bat over his head and backwards it had to go five bat lengths to be and official toss.

The bat had to travel at least these five bat lengths from the thrower for him to get first choice of a teammate.

Failing to toss the five bat lengths, allowed the other man to get first choice. Sounds complicated? Naw! not really if you studied the rules.

2. Here is another way we would determine which team captain would get first choice of players.

The two (2) leaders or captains would stand side by side and hold out both fists.

Then a player would basically count off by using this ole song or ditty which every playground playing kid knew.. Alternating hitting each of the fists at each word.

He or she would say, " One potato two potato three potato four, five potato six potato seven potato more." At the more, that player would put that fist behind his back.

Spelling it potato or potatoe is not part of baseball terminology during the playing of the game so maybe spelling will not count as an out.

Now with three fists remaining, the counter would go thru this entire spill again. Possibly, the same man would have both fists behind him, anyway the first man with both fists behind him was out and the other man had first choice.

Should I have spelled potato as potatoe? It does not matter we are on the playground for baseball playing, not having a spelling bee.

Is it getting a little bit clearer as to how baseball playground rules or country school yard rules is where we learned more than just baseball ?

My depiction of how the sides were chosen was one of the many and foremost baseball game rules of the playground. You learmed from your older and take charge playground leaders.

What Rule? Baseball Playground Rules and "Hold Your Tater" and "Wait Your Turn" Rules.

Our baseball playground rules were basic always within general rules of baseball and the basic baseball rules for the game. We however have our rules of the playground. Baseball playground rules were concerned with such things as how to choose sides and there was never any arbitration when an upperclassman made a determination of what was what.

Here is the rule. You will get chosen first, second, third or last based on your playing ability. It may sound cruel but that is the rule of the playground.--No it is not written--but you better believe it stands.

Baseball playground rules was a tough game out there at play period or recess but the lessons were learned well. It was a means by which our lives could handle subtle little bumps along the way and try harder and dig deeper and be winners.

A kid with knockout good looks or the one in the classroom who is a math whiz carries no weight when it comes to choosing sides to play a game of baseball.

Ready for another rule that applies? Youngsters who enjoy baseball playground rules and have that grit and desire to play, will do the things it takes to develop those skills which make him one of the few chosen. Desire often determines the baseball winners and with a baseballs winning attitude this desire and determination usually and rightly separates the winners and the losers.

To be chosen last is rough but to not even be chosen is almost cruel, but it happens. Baseball begins to teach us quickly and with out question that life is not a bed of roses. No one promised you a rose garden--is real life.

Would you believe there is a rule of the playground that will elevate your good ball players into a Hero status? Our social order has determined that a superb athlete with skills beyond the norm rates admiration and a fan following.

Baseball playing is fun. It's exciting and it has it's learned lessons which should be melded into the normal growing up process.

Structured and organized control of this learned process needs to be tempered with natural use of peer action.

Now you see what's happening out there on that playground? We are witnessing ball players who play because they love the game, plus we see they are developing character and perserverance to be winners.

Baseball playground rules which we learned were taught at recess on the playgrounds by any measurement standard was one of the great teachers within our lives.

The Bebble brothers with the development of our little league rules sure changed the tenor and atmosphere of our baseball playing playgroud rules. When we get everything organized just right then Camelot and Utopia will be part of the Shining City on the Hill.

Now with this new status as a good ball player comes the perks of peer recognition, which fuels further quest to be the best.

As you may well recognize, my rules are not what you would normally term rules, but more about learning to grow and develop while playing a game. This game coincidently, is baseball.

The atmosphere and peer pressure exerted by the strongest and biggest controlled the playground baseball game rules action but even then we played our Country Baseball by the rules of baseball.

It never ever entered our minds that we might need sporting news baseball game rules to guide our playing baseball on the playground.

Many of the boys and girls who played, honed their skills via their daily chores on the farm while developing their skills using country-style baseball training with baseball country style methods as training equipment in their everyday life.

There was no coach or real adult supervision constantly on the scene with their own agenda of trying to live a fantasy of stardom in the life of the young boys and girls.

Baseball playing playground rules along with our baseball game rules made us accept and endure and mature.

Boys surely hate to admit it but some of the girls were such good players it embarrassed the tag along boys, sometimes chosen after the girls.

Yes, most all of the young players did learn the rudiments of playing the game by observation and as they matured they got a chance to participate.

From playing playground baseball game rules, they also learned the unwritten rules about batter up rule "It's My Turn!, I have waited so long, it has to be my turn."

They learned the game by watching and listening to the older players. The burning desire to play starts taking place between the ages of 8 to 12 years of age. This would equate to our modern day playground of Little League.

Baseball game rules and playing playground rules never turned a boy or girl into a second rate citizen, but simply made them develop into better and stronger people in the process. This I truly believe.

With the beginning of little league baseball with Little League rules and regulations, baseball became an organized adult controlled and supervised game instead of being played by our beautiful character building playground baseball game rules.

In and by itself baseball game rules in transition to supervised and coached team playing was not all bad.

Through my years of learning and enjoying the game of baseball one old true standard has served us well such as our Sporting News baseball rules. The Sporting News baseball rules published by The Sporting News magazine was popular item in the junior high Library.

But from my perception something was lost in this metamorphic occurrence. Our playground rules of baseball game rules playing are gone and we are now more structured.

Many young players today must play on a team beholding to some authority allowing as to who gets to play also only playing those being groomed to be the All Stars.

I'll tell you which adults were there to encourage us when it mattered most. It was those Uncles and Cousins who loved the game. My uncle, Russell Keith, actually my great uncle, dearly loved the game of baseball.

Two of my second cousins, Leon and Flip Keith along with my "Uncle Russell," would take me as a youngster to Rickwood Field to watch and cheer, with all our might, our Birmingham Barons at play.

Folks that is what this game of baseball is all about.

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Then to you might want to pick up on some more of our baseball playground rules or some of our other school yard playground rules from our baseball made up rules.

So-be-it! Remember I mentioned that knock-out good looking kid? Well, he just might be that super athlete with all the strength, agility,super speed and body size who becomes the Super Hero and everyone's All Star. This baseball playing Kid may one day be the King Of The Diamonds.

Roy Rogers was King of the Cowboys and Tarzan was King of the Jungle well one day we just might have us The King Of The Diamonds.

Baseball is unique by its uses of lingo, vocabulary, terminolgy, chatter and jargon all of which is a descriptive word picture describing the game and the action surrounding whats happening.

The fluent close up use of the baseball playground rules with ball playing language or baseball lingo is an essential element for understanding this game of baseball.

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