2018 hand painted baseball #3

2018 baseball #3
Hand painted official MLB ball
 
Little league baseball consumed my world in the late 70’s early 80’s....everybody I knew played in the Manchester southwest league, all the guys from the neighborhood, my classmates, my cousins....during my 12 year old year I pitched and played shortstop for Clark’s hardware, and we were terrible! We had only one other 12 year old on the team, I suppose it was a rebuilding year for Clark’s! Our jerseys were black, and one sweltering Saturday morning we were facing my cousin Patrick’s team, sully’s superette...I was pitching well, throwing a shutout through 5 innings when Patrick came up to the plate...now, Patrick was a big dude (he eventually went on to play college hoops and already towered over the rest of us) we had been best buddies since he was born three months after me, and these couple years of little league were the only time we were not on the same team, all the way through high school.....think Daryl strawberry in little league, it appeared that his bat could reach any ball from Manchester to the coast....well I was feeling good....I lean in to the windup, rear back and uncork the fastest fastball I could muster...as soon as I let go, a little voice inside my head whimpered “uh-oh”....beyond center field was a little playground where siblings hung out, and beyond that was a parking lot and beyond that was the Dairy Queen....I’m not sure if that ball Patrick hit ever came down, but if it did it probably landed in somebody’s ice cream
 
In celebration of the 2018 baseball season , here is the third of nine hand painted baseballs I released on opening day...each unique ball comes in a clear UV display cube