Saturday, October 13, 2018

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Your Sporting Activities

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!


Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1)  What sporting activities did you participate in as a youth and as an adult?


2)  Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or Google+.  Please leave a comment on this post with a link to your post.

Thank you to Lisa Gorrell for suggesting this SNGF topic.


Here's mine:


As a child, I loved playing baseball, and being competitive.  We played at school on the south field, at the playground on the way home from school, at the park, and on the street by our house.  The best place was at Grape Street Park - there was a big grassy area that backed up to the golf course driving range.  We usually played three flies up (one player hits flies, and when someone catches three on the fly, they get to hit the flies).  This was tremendous for hitting, and for playing outfield.  

 I was small and left-handed, but coordinated, and I could throw, catch and run well, but didn't hit very well, but I bunted well.  I have always had poor eyesight without my glasses (amblyopia, left eye dominant), which I finally got when I was 12.  I still couldn't hit well after I got my glasses.

In 5th grade, there was a school baseball team, and we traveled to other schools to play their teams.  I usually was a substitute and played the outfield because of my size and hitting problems.  

When we finally got Little League in 1957, I was a year too old.  I tried out for Pony League, but didn't make the team.  So I became a coach and scorekeeper for my brother's Little League team, with my father as the manager.  That was fun, and I got to pitch batting practice and do infield drills.  When Stan turned 13, I was a coach and scorekeeper for his two years in Pony League with my father as manager.  

When my brother Scott turned 8, my dad managed his Little League teams for five years, and his Pony League team for two years.  I coached and scorekept all those years.  At age 23, I started managing a Little League team myself and did that for about six years until we had our first child.  When my daughter was 9 years old, Linda became a manager and I was the coach for the girls softball teams until they entered high school.

Back in the 1950s, brother Stan and I took the bus down to the PCL San Diego Padres field on Harbor Drive to attend games, and we listened to many of the games on the radio at home every night.  We also got a television around that time, and were able to watch the Game of the Week and the World Series.  My father, being from Massachusetts, was a Boston Red Sox fan, and hated the Yankees.  

I am still a San Diego Padres fan, and Linda and I have had a 20-game season ticket package since 1998.  We watch almost every game on TV.   It's been a long time since the Padres made the playoffs, and they've been to the World Series only twice, in 1984 and 1998.  Hope still springs eternal every spring. 

Other sports?  In the fall, we played touch and flag football at Grape Street Park - I was usually a quarterback.  We also threw the football on 30th street in between cars and buses rumbling by.  The Chargers came to town in 1961, and I've been a devoted fan ever since.  Before we had children, we had season tickets for a few years.  Now I just watch on TV since the damn owners moved the team out of town.  

Bowling.  As a teen, I started bowling at Aztec Bowl, and by the time I was a young adult I had a 180 average.  After marriage, I didn't bowl very much and now not at all because it hurts my sliding knee. 

Basketball?  In school, my friends and I stopped at the church playground after school and played, but I was always really small and not quick enough.  No big loss IMHO.

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Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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3 comments:

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

Thanks, Randy! This was also the theme for 52 Ancestors this week, so I wrote about sports twice.

https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2018/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html

Janice M. Sellers said...

Here's mine (and I mentioned Lisa!):

http://www.ancestraldiscoveries.com/2018/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html

Linda Stufflebean said...

Swimming and waterskiing were it for me. Here's my link: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2018/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-15/