My oldest (and I’m talking at least 30 years old) memory of baseball starts in southern Anne Arundel County, Maryland (“down the country” to anyone who lived North) in a small town called Galesville.
About 14 miles south of my hometown, Annapolis, and located along the short of the West River (an arm of the Chesapeake Bay), Galesville was a historic waterman’s village and believed to be the first Quaker settlement in Maryland. If you’ve never heard of Galesville, it’s okay…had my ancestors life in America not start there…neither would I.
For reference purposes…it’s here-ish:
Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my family down the country.
Playing outside (the old-school way) with my cousins in Edgewater; going to church with my grandmother in Harwood; cruising on boats with my grandfather off the coast of Shady Side and around the Chesapeake Bay; and in the Summer, on any given Saturday or Sunday afternoon, going to sandlot baseball games at Geno’s and Drury’s ball fields in Lothian or Tracey’s in Deale, with my mom and aunt.
However, the ball field in Galesville felt like home…the place to be. Perhaps that’s because every time we were there, we always ran into a cousin “so-and-so”…which turned into a long-winded conversation about how life was going, the family, the church, etc. I was a kid! All I wanted to do was run around in the dirt, watch some baseball, grab a grape soda and a hot dog or fried fish, look for fly balls, and play in the dirt some more.
As a kid, I had very little knowledge of the game itself or that that ball field was set on property owned by Mr. Henry Wilson, a former freed slave and one of the first black men to own land in Galesville. It was the Home of the Galesville Hot Sox, and had even hosted a few Negro League teams back in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
My love of baseball would evolve from those days as I caught games at the Y in Annapolis and Orioles games at Camden Yards; or at the Os’ AA Affiliate the Bowie Baysox; even travelling to Woodbridge, VA for the Nationals’ own Class A Advanced Affiliate, the Potomac Nationals.
But it would be from my time down the country as a kid, that I would start to associate the sport of baseball with family, the summer heat, good cooking/food, and the feeling of…home. It’s no wonder I find the ballpark serene.
So, when did you fall in love with baseball?
-Nika
Nika's On First 
Absolutely wonderful, I can’t wait to read more of your blogs
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Thank you for reading!
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I first “noticed” baseball in the early 90s. I was 6 yra old in 1990 and my brother is 6 years older than me so if he watched it, I watched it. Cal Ripken. Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson (Bo Knows) – we named our dog Bo. Lol. At that time Denver didn’t have a MLB team. My brother and his friends would go to the park and play….I’d tag along and play baseball with the boys. So in 1993 along came the Colorado Rockies and Coors Field! It was exciting! I remember the lead up to the building of the stadium. Our Dad would take us downtown to watch its progress and eventually on opening day my dad got us and the neighborhood kids tickets….to opening day! I still have memorabilia from opening day. It was so exciting. And then my Dad became sick and he couldn’t take us as much anymore…and then he died. But baseball. There is nothing better than baseball in the summer…a hot dog…beer…funnel cake…the breeze thru tunnels to walk into the stadium. It just feels right. And I especially love night games in September. It’s hard to be a Rockies fan but I’ll always root for the team (the owners can kick rocks – no pun intended 😆) because one day were gonna win the Fall Classic. Anyways. Thats why I love baseball.
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Great article! lots of good ole memories! Thanks for sharing
Lenora Mullins
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