In grade school, one of my classmates had a dad who coached, so he was really into it, and organized games at recess w/ a tennis ball and basically whatever we could pull together (This is like grade 4). From there I joined a softball league, and then started playing hardball at Bond Park, where my nickname was "showboat" (which was a popular musical at the time) because of a thing I did with my bat at the plate between pitches.
I had probably the worst arm in the history of baseball, but I could play anywhere in the infield pretty well, and really loved 1B. I was in shape at the time, and could get down into the side splits to pick balls outta the dirt, but they always preferred lefty 1Bs.