I attended a little league game recently back home in Claiborne County. I went almost undetected. I received a special invitation from parents and as it worked out, I was in town that evening and along with my wife, we made the beautiful drive up highway 33. I told the parents that I would attend if only they would keep it quiet, that I did not want to be noticed, I did not want to be announced. I just wanted to enjoy the game, the atmosphere, the smell of ballpark food and the sounds that go along with baseball.

I had no ore than just arrived when I noticed it, the atmosphere, and the sounds the excitement was in the air. The competitive edge was glowing by those participating, they had their game faces on, and shouts of encouragements were everywhere. You could tell, not needing to be a trained professional baseball scout to recognize that these folks were serious about their baseball. After about 10 minutes of this excitement the players finally showed up they had been in their pre game team meeting somewhere. Oh by the way, the excitement I have just described was demonstrated by the parents. Yes the parents had their game faces on and they were ready. I could tell these parents loved their baseball and their kids. As the game commenced the kids were playing their hearts out and as one team took the lead and then the other, inning after inning, back and forth, being a trained scout I never cheer or pull for one team or another, I’m there to watch the player not the game.

After about 1 minute of arriving I got caught up in the excitement and found myself rooting for both teams whichever player was batting at the time I was cheering for. My wife asked if I should be acting this way being a pro scout. After much long pondering of about 2 seconds I answered her, YES I should be an maybe even louder. Well the louder I got the more attention I drew to myself and then it happened a dad said, are you the scout that writes for our paper? I answered affirmative and that I was enjoying an invitation I received to watch a great bunch of kids playing the best game ever invented. After a few moments of small talk the dad respected my excitement of the game and we cheered together.

After all was said and done I realized a very important thing, after all the travel, the gazillions of stadiums, ballparks and ball fields, the gazillions of meetings and games, I realized that I’m still just a fan of the game. So thanks for the invite I enjoyed myself more than you will ever know and the baseball being played back home helped me realize “I’m still a fan>”

This weeks question comes from Sybil in Speedwell. You read all kinds of stories on the Internet about the players and their families, what and how much should I trust to be true? Sybil good question, I touched on this once before. In general players don’t have time to give information through the Internet. May things you read will be someone’s opinion and most of the time a faceless person. Players do release information through the proper channels and always to someone they know and can contact the Internet is for rumors and falsehood most of the time. I know in my case if I can’t look you in the face or call you on the phone and know exactly whom I’ speaking with I won’t deal with you. In short, be careful in trusting the internet that is usually for rumor starting don’t have a life, or I hate y life people. Make sure your information comes from a credible source.