My dad was fairly athletic growing up in a small town in northern Pennsylvania where all the boys had to play sports because there were only like 30 boys in the high school. When I was like 4 or 5 my dad started me playing by just playing catch or hitting. He said that he would try to teach me to hit right handed and I kept just going back to hitting lefty. When I got to be 12 I signed up for our rec league (didn't have Little League in our area) and I got assigned to the Yellow team who was coached by Chuck. He was so awesome because he just wanted us to have fun. Winning didn't matter to him he just wanted to teach us how to play and let us enjoy ourselves. If you stepped away from a pitch while swinging or let a ball go through your legs it was 10 pushups. I played 2 years total. Catcher, 2nd base, and center the first year and my second year I was the fattest shortstop in the league (5'5" 194 lb). Looking back on it I was the most un-stereotypical player ever. In the field I got to everything but with a relatively noodle arm and in the batters box I was a fat slap singles lead off guy who always got a piece of it. I miss playing.