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Doug Kessler | all galleries >> Family >> Me > Little League
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28-MAY-2007

Little League

I started playing organized baseball with a Cub Scout League. After that there was Little League, Pony League, Babe Ruth and finally, Intermural in High School. Somewhere along the way I lost my desire to play competitively until the mid 80s when I turned to softball leagues wherever I happened to be working at that time.
I have always followed Major League baseball and have been a lifelong Dodger fan. I can still remember the uproar when they moved to the left coast.
My dad was a Dodger fan also and some of my fondest memories are seeing him with the earphone plugged into his AM transistor radio listening to the games in Victorville as they were broadcast from Los Angeles.
Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett (the Dodger Play-by-play announcers) were highly revered names in our world.
In this picture I have my first baseball glove that was given to me by my dad. I am also wearing the baseball shoes with spiked cleats that I bought with my paper route money. Man, nothing felt quite like metal cleats when you were playing baseball. They are illegal now.
When this picture was taken. I was playing for the George Air Force Base Little League team. I was a pitcher.


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Craig Persel08-Jun-2007 00:07
Yep. Vince and Jerry. The voice of the Dodgers. Growing up in Bakersfield you couldn't be anything but a Dodger fan with a local Dodger farm team and seeing future big league stars playing at Sam Lynn Field. Metal cleats are now illegal? Ah ... what a shame.
Vincent Belford07-Jun-2007 11:25
a wonderful memory - if nothing else photography is about TIME and a prime reason we all shoot - I'd like to recommend 'The Mickey Mantle Koan" by James David Duncan from his excellent volume of short stories and essays, "River Teeth" and his fabulous novel "The Brothers K" (kind of Dostoevsky in baseball)
Gary Winters07-Jun-2007 04:53
I'll never forget my baseball uniform I had when I was a kid. It was the coolest thing I"d ever worn. Thanks for bringing back some memories tonight!
Dan Chusid07-Jun-2007 02:42
Ah, Vin Scully, now there's a soothing voice I wish the Padres
had to replace Jerry Coleman. I grew up with Red Barber, Mel Allen,
Bill White and Phil Rizzuto among others.
Still playing softball almost every week too with my rubber cleats.
(Left-handed shortstop and pitcher)
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