Baseball. There You Are...

"Pllllaaaaaaayyyyy baaaaallllll...."

The immortal words of one Patrick Renna, AKA Hamilton "Ham" Porter.

If you can look past stereotypes, (the fat kid that plays catcher, the nerd guy with the big balls that puts one on the supermodel lifeguard, and a Latin American that steals....home), you've got yourself a timeless classic in "The Sandlot."

Timeless because at one point or another, we've all played on a gopher-holed patch of unkept Bermuda Fescue, where the sprinklers could cause a rain delay at the drop of a hat; usually one flipped to determine first-ups. And if we didn't play ball, we've most certainly all had a child, a sibling, or at least a crush we caught after school from the stands.

Rick Stedman...

Nothing like Spits and peanut shrapnel to camouflage the birds droppings on the sunburned bleachers. Siding with an umpire's subjective on the grounds of whether the color of your jersey matched the runner ruled safe at the plate. Keep your sanitizer in your purse, Mom. Out here we wash our hands with rosin. A mustard stain is the sign of a good dog. And the cleaner our game, the dirtier our pants. 

Granted, there's no buzzer beaters. There's no last second field goals to determine Super Bowls. There's no ankle locks, penalty kicks, or even bru-ha-has at center ice.

But there is baseball.

The stitches on a Rawlings that mirrored the first your doctor pulled out from your ankle after you ended up on the losing end of a slide at second base. The oil you spat into your mitt, wrapped in rubber bands, and kept under your childhood mattress for two months leading up to spring. And the voice on the radio that put you to sleep long after your parents said extra innings was past your bedtime.

Eye black, pine tar, steel cleats, chalk lines, superstitions, rubber mounds, foul poles, 60 feet and 6 inches to glory.

Cup-check boys. It's time to take the field.

Enjoy the video. And thank you Abner.