When my father was growing up, teenagers in the towns around were self-organizing and played baseball on their own, the guys from this town against the guys from that town. All summer.<p>When I was growing up, the grown-ups organized everything and decided who played when, and we had...maybe ten? games in a summer, with a few practice sessions before that. It&#x27;s been a while, but I have the idea that if you were good enough to be in the lineup regularly, you&#x27;d get something like 25 chances to hit a baseball per year. Or wait, I think we had games that were more like seven innings. Maybe 25 was an overestimate.<p>PS Also, something about the death of the baseball card and how the major league strike of 1994 led a generation to move on.<p>PPS I remember it being fascinating to learn that teenagers were allowed -- or had the idea it was possible -- or something -- to do something so on their own.