Sadly I think we have all become almost accepting that attending live events of any description, sporting or otherwise, is for now at least, a thing of the past. It seems quite normal already to watch basketball and hockey playoff games – even the US Open Finals – with (at best) only cardboard cutouts in the stands and lame piped-in crowd noise that is every bit as annoying as the laugh tracks on sitcoms.

At least for us sports-starved fans we now have games aplenty to watch. And not only that but just about every sport known to mankind (except maybe curling and skiing) is being played at the same time. I mean, when last was the NHL still trying to decide who gets to play for the Stanley Cup when the NFL was starting a new season? By the way, that’s a rhetorical question: the answer is clearly never!

On Saturday morning, I was not surprised but still disappointed to be told that parents were not allowed to enter the rink in which, that evening, my youngest goalie son was to play his first midget game of a new season – as opposed to wrapping up last season. So, instead of watching hockey in a cold dank rink, I went out for a walk in the sunshine and, in a local park, stumbled upon a wonderful live sporting event. It had real players and non-cardboard spectators and turned out to be the most delightful event of my day.

It was a boys’ little league baseball game and, for reasons that will become apparent, I suspect it was not only the first game of the season but for most of them, their first ever game – period.

I got there just in time to see the little boy at bat take a huge swing at a ball that was probably five feet off the plate. This drew a chorus of “great swing” and “great pitch” calls from the respective mask-wearing parents. On the next pitch though the fun really began. The pitch came in knee-high and right over the plate at a blistering 25 mph but the batter was ready for it. It wasn’t quite a bunt, or really a swing, but he somehow made glancing contact with the ball, which dropped about two feet in front of him.

Hilariously, the batter and catcher both froze staring at the live, in-play ball as parents and coaches yelled things like, “great hit” “run” or “tag him out” while others tried hard not to shriek in amusement.

Finally – it was only a matter of two or three seconds but seemed forever – the batter took off for a base – third! By the time he responded to the “wrong way” screams, turned around and jogged (across the diamond) towards first, the catcher was still standing there with the ball in his glove looking bewildered. In response to a barrage of “throw it to first” calls he promptly threw it – to the pitcher. Clearly startled, the pitcher then proceeded to throw the ball way over the head of the first baseman while the, now sprinting, batter came around third and, in a spectacular cloud of dust, dived headlong into home plate for an inside-the-park home run! It was a wonderful dive but, as the first baseman had just thrown the ball to second, it was a tad theatrical.

The grinning, dusty, runner was joyously high-fived by teammates and applauded by the assembled parents as if he’d just done a Joe Carter – ask some who knows baseball, they’ll explain. It was all great fun and brought back a plethora of wonderfully happy memories of similar situations with my own sons and their early involvement in every sport, be it baseball, hockey, soccer or skiing.

One of the funniest moments I recall was also in a baseball game. One little boy running the base paths was about to stop at third when he responded to his coaches’ cries of, “Go home, go home!” by instead running off the field into the arms of his astonished mother, who happened to be standing near third base. She later explained that he’d taken “go home” to mean exactly what he did – he went home to his mom.

Now, as a lifetime Blue Jays fan, I have to confess that some of the errors their millionaire professionals have been making in the field this season have been almost as bad but not at all as amusing. The good news for them when such things go awry, is that cutout fans can’t make catcalls.

So, in these times of so much bad news it was kind of uplifting to see how such a ‘Bad News Bears’ performance (ask the same guy you asked about Joe Carter) could put a smile on so many faces.

Stay safe, stay sane.