I was never going to be much of a football player. At 5 feet, 11 inches tall and maybe 110 pounds soaking wet, I wasn't going to scare anyone. Didn't stop me from foolishly leaving parts of both my shoulders out on those fields.
I was a decent basketball player, but I was never going to be a starter on our high school team. One of our assistant coaches on the high school football team also happened to be the wrestling coach. He wanted me to try out for the team, but I foolishly stuck to my hoop dreams.
I probably could have been a decent cross-country runner. Dabbled a bit with ice hockey. Didn't discover golf until later in life.
Then there was baseball. Before I ever noticed there were girls in this world - complete with cute pigtails and freckles on their nose - there was baseball. It was my first love.
And I was good. I could really play. No wonder. It's about all I did all summer. How much did we play? Ask yourself this question: When's the last time you saw a group of guys in a field playing a game of pickup baseball. No adults, no uniforms, not even complete teams. Just guys - boys really - playing the game they loved.
We played from sun up to sun down. Until lumpy baseballs actually unraveled. With bats that usually had nails in them to repair breaks. No, we never once considered throwing away a perfectly good broken bat.
I don't know what happened to that scene. People tell me that there are actually fewer big families these days, thus fewer kids needed to choose sides in pick-up baseball. Maybe.
I never even needed other kids to play. I would often play an imaginary game of my own out in the yard, playing every position, and stepping up as every guy in the great lineups of those days, both right- and left-handed batters.
They say parents today are afraid to let their kids go out unsupervised. I was guilty of that. The truth is we darted out of the house first thing in the morning. I think my mother figured that when I got hungry enough, I'd be back. Either that or it got dark. She didn't know where we were, aside from the fact that we were in town somewhere. She never had to worry that we were in danger, aside from the occasion beaning with a pitched ball or disagreement among guys that ended in fisticuffs.
We didn't need adults, nor umpires. We settled our own disputes. We didn't have uniforms, unless you count dungarees with holes in the knees. We ruled the games ourselves.
Most of all, we respected the game. And we loved it. We played for nothing. And were much richer for it.
All of which is a roundabout way of bringing me to Ryan Braun.
The former American League MVP has now been suspended for the rest of the season after he admitted "mistakes" in using PEDs, performance enhancing drugs.
The Brewers are mired a million games out of the playoff race. Braun is struggling with a series of injuries. After his extended vacation, next year once again he will be eligible to play and collect his new $100 million contract.
So who loses? The game does. And the kids - and former kids - who love it.
Today kids don't seem to play because they love the game. They often seem to play because their parents want them to. Or they get nice uniforms. And play in organized leagues with umpires. And, of course, everyone gets a trophy.
We didn't get trophies when we were kids. We knew on any given day there were winners and losers. You didn't always win. You didn't get paid.
Back then, professional baseball players were just another part of society, of your neighborhood. Now they exist in another world, one light years removed from fans - and the kids who will grow up to be the next fan base.
They play for money. Unbelievable gobs of money.
I guess that's why they cheat.
But it doesn't explain why they lie. Ryan Braun did both. He looked in the cameras and insisted he did not use any performance-enhancing drugs. He even attacked a UPS driver who was just doing his job and managed to skirt punishment the first time he got caught.
There will be others in the days to come.
It is being called baseball's Steroid Era.
Actually it is the end of an era. All the numbers - the lifeblood that courses through the game's veins and are handed down from one era to another - are now suspect.
It's the end of innocence.
The end of a game played by kids.
Now it's played by cheats and liars. In fancy uniforms. In front of adoring crowds. For millions of dollars.
That's what Ryan Braun, and all the rest of his ilk, have cost us.
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