There was never enough kids to play baseball,
On that pasture, way out in the hills.
Three tote sacks of sand, and two boards for home plate.
We thought we were big league, in that desolate place.
And not in the history of baseball,
Was a ball field, like ours, so unique.
Where cattle and horses grazed, (I’ll be discrete)
What they left on that field made us nimble of feet.

But there was never enough kids to play baseball;
Not like what you see on TV.
Buddy and Willie and Roderick made three.
There’s Johnny and Douglas, and oh, don’t forget me.
Six kids, who just loved to play baseball,
In our KC Athletics ball hats.
Two worn out axe handles were our big league bats.
Plus a taped up old baseball, looked chewed on by rats.

But you should’ve seen just how we played baseball.
In that cow pasture stadium place.
They’d be a pitcher and batter, and just in case
We had another, he’d play first, second and third base.
It was all in the way we played baseball.
Because without further adieu.
The pitcher would wind up and man, that ball flew.
Then he’d run past the batter, ‘cause he played catcher too.

But even in back country baseball,
The umpire would still call the play.
The couch ran to the umpire and gave him real ‘hey’
Then he would fight with himself….. (He’s also umpire today)
We’d confuse them that watched us play baseball,
A performance in its own right.
I slid into home, while playing left field and right.
It was truly a full blown schizophrenic delight.

Once I went out for a high flying baseball,
But it bounced off my head, with a jolt.
I went down on my face, sliding, and that’s all she wrote….
Except a fresh green cow paddy, that slid down my throat.
I was a casualty of cow-patty baseball,
With a smile that was ripe in my nose.
I got up spitting and gagging, my stomach arose.
I swear I threw up all the nails on my toes.

Where once stood a hero of baseball,
Stood a dazed boy, orally befouled.
The others fell laughing, I mean right out loud.
(The smell on my breath woulda’ made organic gardeners quite proud.
There were lessons we learned well at baseball
On that wonderful cow pattied site.
“Watch your step when you walk thru this world of delight;
And when you brain ain’t a-working, keep your mouth shut real tight…)

I just walked on the grounds of our baseball.
Where three decades of time now efface.
The bramble and thistle now thickly embrace;
I remember, and smile, but with tears on my face.
For the time came when we laid down our baseball,
When we were called on to serve, and to stand.
But after the bugles and big army bands’
They became war’s new victims, in far away lands.

For there’s no one left now to play baseball,
On our diamond, now long turned to dust.
Those kids, who came daily, on whom I’d rely,
Have all been traded to that team in the sky.
They’re all up there playing baseball,
Now wearing new Angel’s ball hats.
With Cobb, Ruth, and Mantle, that’s where they’re at.
And DiMaggio and Williams will teach them to bat.

All out in the stars, playing baseball,
But with a much better team now, I pray.
Where they’ll all bat one thousand, on any given day.
In that heavenly stadium on the great Milky Way.

…where there’s a lot of good kids to play baseball………………….

04/05/2005

Posted on 04/05/2005
Copyright © 2026 Fredrich Mohre