Matt Suoja: Looking back on playing baseball on a tennis court

Many years ago, my friends and I would dust off our tennis shoes and head over to the tennis court near my house.

No, we didn't bring rackets with us -- although we did bring tennis balls -- we brought our baseball bats and gloves.

Insanity, some may call it.

"Being nine or 10 years old and not caring about what other people thought" is what I call it.

We never interrupted a game of tennis when we were playing. If people were using the court for tennis, we would kindly shuffle on home and wait for a better opportunity -- where we would complain about the people using the court for tennis.

What were they thinking?

I think there were a few times when people wanted to play tennis when we were playing baseball.

I don't remember what we did -- we probably left.

The nice thing about playing baseball on a tennis court is that you didn't need too many people to play.

Four was the perfect amount. By four, I mean two-on-two.

We had the pitcher, along with a fielder.

You may ask, "What do you do when two guys get on base?"

We would use a ghost runner.

These runners take the place of a real runner. When we first started playing these games, we made up rules about what a ghost runner could and couldn't do.

Ghost runners couldn't steal a base. If there was a runner on second and a double was hit, then the runner on second would score.

If there was a base hit with a runner on second and nobody else on, they could only move up one base.

Over time, however, these rules were bent, rarely to the liking of an opposing team. Seldom did we finish a game. The game usually ended with a big argument and everyone would go home.

Within the next couple days, we would be back out on the court and work out our differences on the rules we came up with.

We would usually have a different argument and the same cycle would ensue.

Note: No one needed to worry about injuries -- accidental or inflicted -- when we were playing baseball on a tennis court. There was an ambulance garage right next to the court. (Mom liked that.)

The games we played were on one side of a two-court facility (there were two courts encased by a high steel wall).

Our bases were determined by lines on the court, and a home run occurred when the ball went over the fence (if it was fair).

Being fair or foul was determined by the posts holding up the tennis nets.

The pitcher threw underhand, which made for some high-scoring matches.

Feel free to apply what I just shared.

If you are a young ballplayer and want to get a game going, it will be difficult to get a "real" game started.

There are just too many players involved in the game of baseball.

Try out tennis court baseball; you will enjoy it. Do it on a public court, however.

For all you tennis players who didn't get to play because of me, sorry.

It sure was fun though.

Matt Suoja is a reporter with the Budgeteer News. He can be reached at 723-1207. E-mails can be sent to msuoja@duluthbudgeteer.com .