Joe Harris

Nothing is as pure as watching a little league baseball game. There's no money, no glory. The kids play for the love of the game while dreaming someday to be Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa.

This is why I was excited when my friends Judy and Marty invited me to their son Kevin's baseball game. Kevin and his teammates are eight-years-old but could put on a good show on the diamond.

Slow ground balls turned into extra base hits and line drives turned into home runs. It was entertaining to see the kids play, to see the joy on their faces, and I began to wonder if that was me when I was eight-years-old.

I'm positive that it was, being that the highlight of my summers revolved around my little league games. I always dreamed of leading my team to the little league World Series and then going on to play for the Cardinals.

Kevin's game reminded me of those times. There were coaches trying to get the kids to run the right way, mothers trying to stop the game to get pictures of their little Johnny while he's at the plate and fathers running to get another beer before their son bats again.

Again I was reminded of a lesson I learned in the past from little league baseball. It was my first year (in fact, I was Kevin's age) and I was in coach-pitch. Being a child of divorce, my grandfather and uncle Ray were my male role models. Both loved the game of baseball and passed that love on to me.

Ray was a coach on my first team. He would take me to practices and games all-the-while talking baseball. My first team was really bad (we won only once the entire year), but Ray made it fun for me by just being there.

One time after a loss, I was pretty down. My whole family was there, though, telling me what a good game we played. Ray would have none of it. He said we didn't play good, that we quit half-way through.

My family was shocked, and my grandmother said something about my being too young to understand what quitting was. However, Ray and I made eye contact right after he said it and I knew what he meant.

I idolized Ray. I wanted to be him, and the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint him. From there on out, I made a promise to myself that I would run out every ground ball, make every practice, arrive early, and stay late.

Before long I incorporated that style into other aspects of my life, including school, work, and friends. I truly believe that most of the success I enjoy today comes from that lesson.

So while I am sitting there at this little league game, I'm realizing this. I look out to the field and see a bunch of impressionable eight-year-old boys just trying to be like their heros.

I listen to their coach give them nothing but positive encouragement. And I look at Marty sitting next to me and I realize that he's Kevin's uncle Ray.

Then I realized that maybe this world would be a better place if everybody had an uncle Ray.