PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Baseball — the backdrop of summer, poetry in motion — is a game for children and young men.
But some older diehards can't quite give up the grip of the bat or the well-worn feel of the glove.
Every Sunday morning, from April through the end of August, players in the Bux-Mont Senior Men's Baseball League roll out of bed and head off to their respective fields to play the game they fell in love with as kids.
"We're just big kids now. We're just old kids and we want to keep playing, keep our bodies moving and we still want to have competition," said Bob Watson.
Watson is the 50-year-old manager and first baseman of the Northampton Angels, a franchise he helped form seven years ago. They play with nine other teams in the 28-and-over "Liberty Bell" Division, which is made up mostly of men in their 30s and 40s.
But there are plenty of players older than that. 54-year-old Mike Waltrich still bends his creaky knees as the team's catcher. "[I'm] a little slower, can't throw as hard, can't run as fast," he admitted, "but baseball is baseball. Most of these guys aged up with me."
Waltrich is a kid compared to players like Tony D'Angelis of the Deep Run Thunderhawks. The 67-year-old has been playing in the Buxmont League since its inception.
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"I saw an ad in Sports Illustrated about a men's baseball league that they were starting in New York, and that was 1987 around," he recounted.
"I called the number. They said they were having a league in our area, Plymouth Meeting, Miles Park. And they had enough players for four teams. And that was the first year of the league."
The season just ended but some of these guys will continue playing through the fall and winter, in various 45-and-over tournaments that are scheduled in warmer parts of the country.