Sports outlook 6/1

It didn't take long, because a lot of people get their Nevada Herald on Saturday. A couple of weeks or so ago, and it was still before the Kentucky Derby started at 4 p.m. that afternoon, the telephone rang. "I was reading your thing in the paper today and I don't know what 500 is." I knew it. There are people out there who have not only never played 500, they'd never even heard of it. Does that mean there is a day coming when people won't get a chance to play that wonderful game of Indian ball. Heck, 500 is a great game to improve fielding. Making it even better is the fact that there are no rules. This, I learned early. I was in the sixth grade when Terry Fox hollered across the street at me, "Want to play 500 with us?" Did I? Fox was a sophomore as was G.W. Steincross. Tom Sherrick, Terry Adam and Terry Welsch were all freshmen. When the older guys ask you to play ball with them, you run happily into a situation that will ultimately lead to at least minor bloodshed. Of course Fox and Steincross wouldn't let the other Terry's mess with me. G.W. was always a real protector. For those of you who don't know about 500, this could be played on a field where Indian ball was unsatisfactory. A batter fungoes flies and raps grounders at the guys on the field. A caught fly is worth 100 points and a cleanly fielded grounder is worth 50. However, an error on a fly costs 100 points and a muffed grounder is minus 50. The game can be made exciting -- even though the excitement is artificial. The first fielder to reach 500 becomes the hitter. Not too complicated. And fun. Life was simpler and more predictable then when Dwight Eisenhower was president and Fulgencio Batista ran Cuba. Granted, old Ike was a golfer but I doubt if he'd cared a whit about the trials and tribulations of Annika Sorenstam. In those days, no one else would have, either. That's why simple pleasures like 500 satisfied us when our days weren't planned. In those days, baseball's best teams were Brooklyn and the New York Yankees. Almost everyone around here was a Cardinal fan and only the incurable romantics or terminally stupid (one of which I was) could love the pitiful Athletics. Major league teams in those days also had an interesting game called pepper. All major league parks used to have stenciled on the field side of the backstop a large sign that read "No pepper." I don't know if they even play pepper nowadays, but it takes just three guys. Two stand side-by-side and field, the third stands about 25 feet away and bounces balls to them with a bat. They field and slow toss the ball back to the batter, who hits it back. The object is to see how many times they can hit and field without a flub. George Brett, Buck Martinez and Cookie Rojas used to be really good at it and I got some great pictures of them playing in Milwaukee near a sign that read "No Pepper." Have you ever played or even seen pepper played? The Yankees and Dodgers, two teams I mentioned earlier, used to play pepper all the time. It sharpens reflexes and makes better fielders. It's probably better than 500, which is what this is about. That long-ago day I went out with those big guys and Fox was the first batter. He lofted a fly and I camped under it. But therein is the problem with having no rules. One of them, Adam, I think, knocked me down and somebody else caught the ball while Steincross threatened bodily harm to the next one who touched the little kid. I don't think I ever caught a ball that day because it's hard for a twig to see from under a tree, but after that I played quite a few times. And that's just one of the ways you get adept at making routine plays. And that has been my complaint. I doubt if anyone who fails to make routine plays ever plays games like 500, or pepper, home run derby or Indian ball. None of them require many people, but learning them leads to things like district or state championships. By the time you are a senior in high school, it's too late to learn the things that would have been of great benefit if learned years earlier. Kids just don't seem to get a chance to do those great kid things anymore.