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where did you learn the game of baseball

But in Pella, it was “ Codwell” more often than not...
The new Pella Sports Park is great and wasmwas needed, but unfortunately one negativernegative is that the Caldwell Park ball fields are quickly turning into an eye sore. The covered picnic area now doubles as an ice rink in the winter, and a skate park takes up part of the parking lot.

The large open green space is still well used, as are the two basketball courts. The "new" aquatic center is also very nice, but I am still nostalgic for the old swimming pool. I can't hear Baker Street without thinking of Caldwell Park and the swimming pool.
 
The new Pella Sports Park is great and wasmwas needed, but unfortunately one negativernegative is that the Caldwell Park ball fields are quickly turning into an eye sore. The covered picnic area now doubles as an ice rink in the winter, and a skate park takes up part of the parking lot.

The large open green space is still well used, as are the two basketball courts. The "new" aquatic center is also very nice, but I am still nostalgic for the old swimming pool. I can't hear Baker Street without thinking of Caldwell Park and the swimming pool.

Dad was a huge fan of city green spaces/parks when he was a councilman/ mayor. Have a vacant lot? Let’s make it a park! He saw a need for a city park when the area around the hospital was being developed...and he was a good Kiwanian...so, Kiwanis sponsored a park! He originally ran for city council because he was upset that the city dump was located directly across the street from the swimming pool and he wanted to get it moved out of town...it is now the site of the HS ballfields and softball diamonds(still?), I believe, west of the HS. The current shelter house is located at the bottom of the favorite southend sledding hill...good memories.
 
Growing up, we were at my house during football season - we had the longest stretch that wasn't blocked (too much) by trees, fences, or landscaping. Basketball season was at Preston's house - he had the only hoop that was over the driveway so you could actually dribble (mine was nailed to a pine tree; my brother & I both became damn good ballhandlers - you had to be when dribbling in sand & among roots. We also had home-court advantage - force your guy to the left of the hoop, where the roots were worse; no way in hell anyone who didn't know the root lines was going there & not losing it out of bounds).
Baseball season was at Scott & Dave's house. Their back yard was fenced in so we had a home run fence. We played in the front yard; home plate was the trunk of a young oak; 1st base was a shoe tossed over in that area; 2nd base the other shoe; 3rd another tree trunk. Ball hit into the tree was live, if you caught it the guy was out. We played using a tennis ball instead of a baseball.
 
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Pick up games where 12 or 14 kids would show up randomly at the ball diamond and choose sides. Work up if we didn't have enough of us. Wiffle ball games in the back yard, we had 4 worn patches that were home plate and bases.

To let you know how old I am, I played LL ball and if you were 8 you played against the old kids (12 y/o's) which was scary as hell. Also, as a 12 y/o we weren't allowed to try to qualify for the LLWS because we allowed girls to play in our league. It was the first year girls played in our league, we had 3 of them and they were damn good, one of them eventually pitching for the ISU softball team.
 
Any empty lot with the neighbor kids and my brothers. Man we played a lot of baseball. We would change lots depending on who was hitting the ball to far such as to many over the street meant time to find a bigger spot. How many baseballs I put on top of the band room and ruin the game that day as we only had 1 ball. Dang the memories and hours we spent.
 
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