When I was 16 I coached a kids' baseball team--technically a minor-league team, made up of players who weren't good enough to be drafted into the "majors." How I had time to do that between school, my own games, and all the usual teenage distractions, I have no idea. I suppose time moved differently then, or maybe we just didn't waste as much of it pretending to be busy.

My players were mostly poor, so I was their ride to every game and practice. I'd borrow my father's 1972 orange-over-white Chevy Cheyenne--a beautiful creamsicle of a pickup--and we'd load up. The duffel bag rode shotgun; 11 or 12 rowdy kids piled into the bed. Nobody thought twice about it in 1975. Seat belts were optional. Helmets were for motorcycles.

We did get pulled over once. Our catcher--a 5-foot-10, 180-pound 12-year-old with a 5 o'clock shadow (I called him "Carl Furillo," though he didn't get the reference)--was waving a pair of nunchucks around. The officer told me, in so many words, that driving a truck full of unrestrained children while one of them brandished martial arts weaponry was not, strictly speaking, ideal. I agreed. So I confiscated the nunchucks, stuck them under the front seat, and we all went on to the game.

Luckily, the officer didn't notice Carl shooting him the bird as we drove away. (Or maybe he just didn't want to fight the kid. There were a couple of times that season I had to hold Carl back from going after an umpire or an opposing coach.)

That was youth sports in 1975--a........

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