I Found My Lost Inner Child in Cooperstown
I lived in the wild with a baseball team of 12-year-olds for a week — and became one of them.
It was a long, grueling week, but one of the most memorable weeks of my life.
I never wanted it to end.
I rediscovered what it was like to be a young boy in the summertime.
No work.
No bills.
No school.
No homework.
No chores.
No parents.
There was only playing ball and messing around with my buddies in the innumerable, imaginative — sometimes mischievous — ways only young boys can.
I didn’t want to return to being 40-something again. I’d trade waking up at 6 a.m. to play baseball over 7 a.m. to go to work every single time. I’d stay at work until midnight — if work was coaching a baseball team.
I wanted to stay 12-years-old. Again. Forever.
As Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. said, “You could be a kid for as long as you want when you play baseball.”
That sums up my week precisely.
It was in Cooperstown, New York — the center of the baseball universe — where I was…
