It is chilly for August in my (new) room this morning, with the windows open from last night, and a breeze entering through my two windows; and on waking up, I am reminded of Sundays spent in Janesville and Beloit during the autumn months of my high school years, where we played baseball in a small league established to take advantage of the best baseball weather the Midwest has to offer. Every Sunday brought another double-header, and between games we'd take a short break to picnic just outside the ball diamond with our families before playing a quick game of catch and taking the field once again.

These seasons had no playoffs, no tournaments, and they punctuated the beginning and the middle of football season. Thusly, we played the game with cheerful abandon, experimenting within the framework of baseball, and for the simple pleasure playing a beautiful game on a beautiful day. We'd try for tricky double-plays, dive for balls questionably in reach, try to stretch singles into doubles, and doubles into triples; we'd steal bases at every opportunity, squeeze in runners, and go up to the plate swinging away.

I wish there still existed such a thing for the world post-high school—even the high school league has been disbanded for a couple of years now for one reason or another. I've said before that baseball is meant to be played in the afternoons of mid-summer days, but thinking back to these games reminds me of an equally fine time to play, when Summer makes its slow exit, and Autumn's golden-brown sets in.