Left Field

Left Field is what I consider to be the first position I played regularly in organized baseball. In my first two years, in what was called the minor leagues in LaGrange Youth Baseball, in the little New York town where I grew up, I played a mix of mostly outfield and second base, but there wasn't much consistency. That is, from what I can remember, as I was only 8-9 years old.

But, at the age of 10, I made it to Little League, and I had a pretty good rookie season—batting .346—as the primary left fielder for a Carter Insurance team that won the LaGrange West division crown, but got smoked in the league championship, 13-1. Of course, this was Little League and everyone had to play, so I mostly shared time in left, but probably got about 60% of the playing time. But, that's not my point.

In later Little League years, I was the starting first baseman and then center fielder, and eventually ended up playing second base—due to my lack of size and unimpressive throwing arm—at more competitive levels of baseball, but left field was my first regular position.

That's not the reason this blog is called Left Field. In fact, other than for the reason that it seemed like a cool title for a blog written by a baseball fanatic, whose subject matter is in the neighborhood of 50% baseball, I don't really know why I decided to call it Left Field. What's really curious to me, as I try to remember the reasoning behind the naming of this blog, is that my first use of it was to countdown my top ten albums of 2003.

Anyway, my point is that I've been working on a post to be titled "The All-Left Field Team." It's an all-time team consisting of nothing but left fielders, an interesting twist on this type of post, at least in my humble opinion. Stay tuned for more on what that's all about.