Pick your friends wisely -

If you have a weakness or shortcoming it’s nice to find a partner or friend that makes up the difference. This is what everyone should look for in a spouse. With this complimenting strength there still needs to be a lot in common. This isn’t only true for spouses, but friends as well. The first time I met one of my best friends was in the fourth grade. I player 1^st base for the Adams Dodgers and he played for the Edith Bowen Cardinals. Everyone hated Edith Bowen, they were a private school that was associated with the local university and most students had parents at the university or were a rich doctors kid. Boy did this kid take the cake, he was their best player and he knew it. For a ten year old he had learned all the tricks – and he could trash talk with the best of them. The best of them – me. That’s what a first baseman does, that’s their job. The only player that has a better opportunity to give the other team the business is the catcher, but he was the nicest guy on earth and the umpire wouldn’t let him get away with to much if he wanted too. Before a group of psychologists decided that it wasn’t beneficial for kid’s self-esteem to lose or have anyone say anything negative, there were some great sayings in baseball. Hey batter – batter swing, pitchers got a rubber arm were two of my favorites. The real personal stuff didn’t start until you got to first base. There it’s not yelled out load for all to hear and there wasn’t an adult standing a foot away like at home plate. That’s the place for the biggest talker on any team, and on our team that was me. Not only did I lead the team in trash, but also in a number of other categories, I led the team in homeruns and strikeouts, being bigger than the other kids there wasn’t much in between. If I hit the ball it usually went a long way, the problem was that I didn’t hit it that often. I also lead the team in hitting batters as a pitcher that was another advantage of being a little bigger; I threw harder than most so when they tried to let me pitch the other team was scared to death. The only question is would I hit more than I struck out, if it was the same then we were Ok, three walks and three strikeouts meant no one scored. Most of these categories won’t get you in the hall of fame, but luckily in those days all you had to do to play was signup. While on first base is when our friendship blossomed – he had a comeback for all of my comment, he also gave me some others that I could use on the other teams for the weeks to come. Most surprisingly both of our moms wore army boots. He did say a couple of word I hadn’t heard before, that must have been his Edith Bowen Education. I look back now and relies because of his language that there must have been some farmers kids at that school as well. It took a few years and a couple of bars of soap before we started defending each other rather than giving our opinions on each other’s heritage.