Lets play ball!

Baseball season is almost upon us as opening day is a scant 3 weeks away. Spring has arrived and with it the dream and lure of the national pastime. Little boys will be buying new leather gloves and practicing and dreaming of making to the big leagues. All the youth leagues will be having trials. They include little league pony league and Babe Ruth league for older kids. No matter how much huge salaries have changed the game and turned it into a business, for the kid buying baseball cards and chewing the gum inside nothing has changed. He and his friends will hit baseballs to each other and pretend they are in the seventh game of the World Series. They will argue about who the greatest hitter was the greatest player was and the best catch of all time.

Well some things have changed, the ticket prices. The writer of these words purchased bleacher tickets for $1.25 in the 1970’s they have gone up a bit. Its gone up about 2000 percent where a regular seat in the bleachers costs 26 dollars. What used to be called box seats cost in the area of $200. The incredible high salaries have priced out lower income kids from attending baseball games. There are a number of organizations that subsidize

tickets for young kids.

As all this is happening the stars of the game are honing there skills in warm sunny Florida. Manny Ramirez Alex Rodriguez and big Papi to name a few of the stars that are limbering up to take the field when the time comes.

Soon some overweight umpire will shout “play ball” and the magic of a new baseball season will happen again.