T-Ball: Still the Same After All These Years

Legendary Charlotte sports writer, Bob Quincy (left), was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame last night. He was a World War II veteran, five-time N.C. Sports Writer of the Year and spent a long and distinguished career in sports media.

But he was also part of the MPTLL family at one time. While he usually wrote about bigger and better things, back in 1980 he wrote about us. More specifically, T-Ball, which at the time was still being played on the Eastover Elementary School playground. There were winners and losers back then. Only two years prior, there had been an actual championship game - played on our crown jewel, E.C. Griffith Field on Randolph Road, no less. I know - I was a 5-year-old on that team and we cut our beach vacation short to come back and play in it.

Otherwise, it's amazing how little has changed about T-Ball in 33 years - the tears and tantrums, the clover picking and helicopter watching. And as Quincy said, "...unless one has the patience to deactivate a time bomb, he never should consider running a T-ball team." Still true. Enjoy, straight from the scrapbook: "No One Left Holding The Bag In T-Ball" - Bob Quincy, Charlotte Observer, 1980.