We have quite a pretty park by our house where Ally plays.  There’s a pool, 5 tennis courts, a playground, a creek, 2 baseball/soccer fields (for small kids) and a pavilion to host parties.  The city of Decatur keeps it in pretty good shape but there is one part of it that has kind of made me sad this year.  The one lower baseball field must not have been used by any youth leagues this year because the infield is filling up with grass quickly.  I walked in the outfield yesterday and could see the markers they spray painted in preparation for the soccer season and it bummed me out.

I really don’t have anything against soccer.  It seems to be a good game for kids although I still find it baffling how it hasn’t translated to being more of a focal point on the national sports scene.  Personally I find it boring as hell but I can appreciate the athleticism of the athletes and I always watch the World Cup when it’s on.  Believe it or not, I even watched the David Beckham U.S. debut the other month.  That was about as anti-climactic as most Super Bowls but it was still neat to see the palpable tension of the crowd wondering when he’d actually get into the game.

My roundabout way in coming to my point today is that I hate to see soccer’s growth in the youth league come at the expense of baseball.  There’s nothing more depressing at a park than to see an empty baseball field or one that has been abandoned.  I know baseball’s not the “sexy” sport kids grow up on anymore and it requires many people to actually play a pickup game.  This isn’t the first ballfield in disrepair and it won’t be the last.  As a matter of fact, I’ve actually seen more baseball complexes in Georgia than I have in any state I’ve been in.  It’s just that those ballparks are bunched together, usually 4-8 parks all in one area.  It’s the neighborhood ballparks that our country has seemed to forget.

I don’t have a problem with them using the parks in the fall for football and soccer but I find it symbolic that we’re running roughshod over what used to be our national pastime with a sport that no kid seems to give a flip about once they’re out of their teens.

Here are two shots of the baseball field I’m talking about.  As you can see, it has a beautiful backdrop of trees that hug the field and make it a visually appealing place to play baseball.  I just wish someone would actually play there again.

The far right of this picture is where the lip of the infield is supposed to be (as was last year).

The walkway from home plate to pitchers mound seems to be the last place where grass hasn't grown.