To the sandlot...and beyond!
I'm not sure what brings me more joy than to know that young boys are out there having fun playing baseball. I prefer sandlot ball, without adult supervision, where boys learn to cooperate, take turns, and work out the rules of fairness. They learn to think: the rules of baseball are designed to make sense, in a spirit of cooperation. If you don't know the rules, you can usually figure them out, and get a consensus based on an internal logic. And if you have to adjust them, it's for the better.
Hitting a ball over the fence is a home run. But the rules could have just as easily have evolved to turn the home run into an out - forcing the game to stay within its boundaries. But it's a home run, because the kids, both true kids and the kids in all of us, the same kids who dreamed of flying a rocket ship to the moon, wanted it that way. In other sports, you must stay within the boundaries or you are punished.
In the paragraph above, you may notice I adjusted the subject from "boys" to "kids". I do not mean to dismiss girls, but I think boys are getting pushed aside too much these days. The young boys of today are being forced to pay the penalty for past generations. It's not fair to them. The sandlots of old had a saying: "You throw like a girl." This meant "you aren't capable of playing at our level. Better up your game." Believe me, if a girl could play at the level the game was being played at, she could fight her way in.
In baseball, there are the boundaries. Gravity does exist. The earth is our home. We travel beyond it unprepared and we die. Boundaries are meant to be obeyed, But, in cases of self fulfillment, or self improvement, we are meant to be people who aspire to break them. And thus, the pitcher can throw the ball as hard as he can, but it must be within the strike zone. The batter can hit the ball as hard and as far as he can, but it must stay fair.
Proper education consists of plenty of recess, with unstructured time for children to play the participation games we pass down to them. And if some kids prefer to play apart, and develop the games of the future, based on individual achievement, God bless them as well.
And God bless baseball.