A sandlot of fun for kids.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

There's no sand and there's really no lot at the corner of 19th Avenue and Lawrence Street in Eugene. There's just a park where kids have been playing baseball all summer long.

And now, it's over. Until next summer, that is.

Robert Sposato's Sandlot Baseball Camp ended Friday at Eugene's Washington Park, but not before the Philadelphia Stars held off the Baltimore Black Sox, 13-9.

Not before a man-child nicknamed "Pops" - "I thought he was a coach," said a spectator - took the mound, threw some "heat," then smashed one past the center-fielder.

And not before every team's bench looked like the Bad News Bears had paid a visit.

This was the second summer for the four-week camp that started July 14, and the boys coming to the park by bike and by parent-driven car were sad to see it end.

"There's no pressure here," said Hayden Rooke-Ley, 11, also known as `Hay-doo.' `You get to come out and do what you want.'

`Go! Get there! Go, go, go, go ... '

The Sandlot camp, for boys ages 10 to 14, is an offshoot of the Safe at Home Baseball Camp that Sposato started at the park in 1998. Safe at Home is for ages 8-14 and runs Mondays through Fridays for four weeks in June and July. Campers go for a week or the entire camp for instruction on baseball fundamentals.

The Sandlot Baseball Camp, however, is about playing ball. Campers pay $60 for a week or up to $180 for the full four weeks, divide into four teams and play on the park's two diamonds Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

"I did this because I heard kids were on computers all day when their parents weren't home," said Sposato, a 51-year-old Lane Community College math and writing teacher who grew up playing sandlot baseball in Brooklyn. Also, he said, "because I love baseball and I needed a summer job."

Look up "sandlot" in the dictionary, and you'll find something like this: "Of or having to do with games, esp. baseball, played by amateurs, orig. on a sandy lot or field, now usually in organized leagues."

Sandlot baseball gets its name from the days when young boys scraped together whatever they could find to use as bats and gloves, and found vacant street corners across America to play the game they loved. They played until dark, or until they heard their mother's voices calling them in for dinner.

First base might have been a telephone pole. The other bases might have been a big rock, a piece of cardboard, maybe someone's jacket.

`Ethan, I'd move back if I was you.'

Don Price grew up in Eugene and played baseball at Graham Field and Washington Park in the 1960s. "Mom would give me a quarter to get a hot dog," said Price, as he watched his son, Garrett, play in the camp Friday. "And I'd stand at the back door (of the concession stand) and they'd take pity on me and give me some of the (popcorn) kernels that didn't pop. I loved Graham Field," he said, watching his son play through the backstop. "This brings back memories for me."

Baseball, Price said, continues to slip in the echelon of major American sports, and something is being lost.

"Basketball is more exciting, and football is contact. We're kind of losing baseball, but this is great here."

`Good inning, good inning ... you're right back in the game now.'

The beauty of sandlot baseball is no coaches, no parents and no uniforms - just a bunch of kids who have to figure out on their own whose going to play what position and where they'll fall in the batting order.

At Sposato's camp, players rotate positions by using a sheet of paper where they get to pick a different position each inning.

Whoever bats last, gets first pick in the field, and so on.

"So there's a lot of stuff they have to figure out," Sposato said.

"Who's gonna play shortstop? You can't have the 9-year-old play shortstop."

Yes, occasionally a 9-year-old slips into camp. And sometimes kids who are bigger than any adult around. Gabe "Pops" Unger is 14 years old and stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 250 pounds. Sposato gives all the players nicknames.

"Pops" was the nickname of Willie Stargell, the Pittsburg Pirates' Hall of Fame outfielder and first baseman known for his hitting prowess.

Unger, who will be a freshman at Churchill High School this fall, led the Stars to victory Friday and was named the camp's best offensive player.

`You don't want to throw high to `Pops.' '

ON THE INTERNET

For more information, go to www.safeathome.4t.com or call 683-1018.

CAPTION(S):

Brian Davies / The Register-Guard Seeking shade beneath his mitt, Hayden Rooke-Ley, 11, monitors the action from right field during a sandlot baseball game at Washington Park in Eugene. Friday's game marked the end of a four-week season in a program intended to get kids outdoors and teach them the fundamentals of baseball.