I was 9. I’d be 10 in November.

On the radio you were hearing Sledgenammer, On my Own, Take Me Home, West End Girls, Addicted to Love, and other overplayed 80’s songs.

Top Gun, Short Circuit and Cobra had come out in May. Ferris Bueller and Karate Kid II would come out in June. Aliens, Stand by Me, and Crocodile Dundee would come out later

I was playing RSI baseball, and probably played well. I don’t remember how the season went, but I sure remember playing.

I loved playing baseball. It was my first love. I loved the chance for individual achievement: standing at the plate, hitting that ball, running my chunky butt to first, stealing second, and making it home.

I played catcher then – of course the fat kid played catcher. But I loved that too. The equipment, the pain of the ball hitting my glove, throwing the ball back to the pitcher, fielding, covering home plate… it was fun.

Then there was the camaraderie in the dugout, attention of parents in stands, sweet taffy from the concession stand, sour pickles, and even the June bugs that would swarm us. These moments were perfect under the lights of Richardson’s Mimosa Park on hot and humid summer nights in the 1980’s.

It was all perfect. But that’s only part of it.

See, my dad loved baseball. He lived in Brooklyn when the Trolley Dodgers played at Ebbets Field. He saw games there. He saw Jackie Robinson. He remembers when the Giants’ Bobby Thompson hit a home run in 1952 and sent the Dodgers home from the NLCS.

He remembered more things than I remembered he told me. Certainly, when a child loses a parent, he realizes that there are many things he wish he could have asked his now gone parent about. I did ask my father about many things, even baseball. But I would have asked him more things when he was alive, and it would have included his memories of all things baseball in New York City in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

Indeed, Major League Baseball had impressed my father with all the romance an American kid could have in one of the sport’s most romantic times ever. No doubt that some of that romance, that love of the game, rubbed off on me this summer.

Actually, it exploded that summer.

Now, I don’t remember when my mother took me and my brother to our first Texas Ranger game. But it was probably in 1984 or 1985. The Rangers were terrible then. They were dead last in the AL West in ’85 and ’84. Beforehand they weren’t memorable either.

That’s not to say I didn’t love the experience. I did. Driving to Arlington from Dallas felt like driving out into the country. Then, of course, there was the game! The BIG lights! The nachos! The players right there! The chance of catching a foul ball with my mit! The 7th inning stretch when the Rangers would play the Cotton Eyed Joe! I still love that version. You can listen to it here.

Indeed, those Ranger games were some of the best memories of my youth. I felt so alive. So happy. Those summer nights at the old Arlington Stadium, too, were perfect for a kid who loved playing the game.

And then something changed in 1986. The Rangers got better. Actually, they got great!

On May 12th of 1986, after a double-header sweep of the Yankees (according to AI) they reached 1st place in the AL West. They battled for first for almost the entire rest of the season.

On the 4th of July, they were in 1st. It was a Friday. School was OUT! My mother was to take my brother and me to the game that night.

That day, as was becoming a quirky ritual of mine, I watched The Right Stuff, which I loved with that music backdropping X1’s and rocket ships launching into the wild blue yonder. That movie set my imagination on fire.

Then there was the game. I can’t say I remember it. The internet says the Rangers beat the Tigers 2-1, and stood on top of the West with a half-game lead over the California Angels. No doubt the victory was exciting, and the fireworks after the game made the victory sweeter.

The Right Stuff before the game, the game itself, and those fireworks afterwards, again, perfect.

And something else made it all sweeter.

That summer my dad introduced me to baseball cards. The statistics on the back of the cards were what got me. The history of a player’s batting average, walks, home runs, etc., told me what kind of player he was. They painted a picture of whom to get excited for when he came up to bat.

Rangers like Don Slaught, Pet O’Brien, Toby Harrah, Scott Fletcher, Steve Buechele, Gary Ward, Oddibe McDowell, Pete Incaviglia, Larry Parish, Ruben Sierra, Tom Paciorek, Gene Petralli – I knew all their numbers on that 4th of July game!

Sometime in August I remember my father taking me to a baseball card shop close to Downtown Dallas which had just gotten the 1986 Donruss series “The Rookies”, which was a set of cards produced during the season, and featured all the ’86 Rookies, like Jose Canseco and Pete Incaviglia. That memory stands out.

Playing baseball, collecting baseball cards and watching MLB games… the feelings from that summer were like those of kids in 40’s and 50’s. For a time, the magic of baseball possessed my soul.

What made me remember all this was listening to Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” recently. I still love that song. 1986 Rangers commercials on TV would show Texas Ranger highlights with “Walk of Life” playing in the background. See an old commercial here. That song also was perfect.

But the magic wouldn’t last.

The California Angels edged out the Rangers in September for 1st place in the AL West. They ended up losing to the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS, who ended up losing to the New York Mets in the World Series. I remember crying when I saw Wade Boggs crying in the dugout when he knew the Series was lost.

Yes, I still loved playing the game until the 90’s. But, in 1987 the Rangers were dead last in the AL West. In ’88 too. That magic was rekindled a bit when Nolan Ryan came to town in ’89, but they ended up 16 games behind the A’s in the West that year.

(I was cheering for the San Francisco Giants in the ’89 World Series. I was born in San Francisco, so, why wouldn’t I cheer for them, especially with names like Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell on their roster?)

However, by the 1990’s my love of watching the game had faded. My love of playing was subsumed by football. It was time for them Cowboys! Before too long, I stopped caring about baseball altogether. I don’t care now.

Part of me wish I still cared. Part of me wishes that magic of youth could still be felt on summer nights in the 2020’s. But that magic is forever gone.

So be it. It was fun once.