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Some of the Houston Astros said they felt a little guilty when they cheated to win the World Series--but their coach made them do it. Players on other teams want to punish the Astros by hitting them with fastballs. Their games won't be fun.

Keep the fun in baseball by getting rid of the coach. Games in our neighborhood would start when somebody yelled "first up." Another kid yelled "second up." Other kids yelled, "pitcher, first base, second base." That was often as far as we got--not a lot of kids in the neighborhood. Sometimes we had to beg a sister to play.

The game was usually played in a backyard. If a batter hit the ball over the fence he was out. It was trouble to retrieve the ball from a neighbor's yard. The kid who hit it had to go get it.

The game began with the pitcher lobbing the ball underhand to the spot where the batter wanted it. If he didn't like the pitch, he let it pass, and the second-up person was the catcher. When the batter hit the ball he usually got at least single. If it went over the second baseman's head, the batter might get a home run. The second baseman was also shortstop, third base, and outfield. He would position himself where he thought the batter was likely to hit the ball.

When a fly ball that was caught, the guy catching the ball became the batter. The batter became the player who caught the ball.

A dribbling ground ball to the pitcher might be an out at first base, IF the first base person was not a sister. Sisters did not want to play baseball. It took a lot of begging to get one to do it. When a ball was thrown to a sister...or rather tossed gently toward a sister...she would close her eyes, turn her head away, hold out her hands...and if it was an accurate throw the ball would bounce out of her hands.

So, when a sister played first base the pitcher would try to run to first base ahead of the batter or run to second base to hold the runner on first. The best chance to get an out was with one runner on first.

There was no catcher, so we wanted the batter to either hit the ball or catch it and toss it back. If he let it go by it rolled to the house. Then, the batter had to get it and toss it back to the pitcher.

When the ball was hit, the runner on first base had to run around all the bases. The second base-outfielder would chase down the ball and the pitcher would go to home plate. If the throw to the pitcher got there before the runner, it was a force out. Then everybody moved up a notch, and the out player became second base-outfield.

The game ended when somebody's Mom called a kid in for supper. Each player could keep track of how many runs he scored if he wanted to. But the kid scoring the most runs did not win the game. We were all winners, because we all got to play every position. And there was no coach to tell us how to play.

-Dean Norman

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards,The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazineand The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.