By Bill Raven

I was playing shortstop. The batter hit a sharp grounder to my right, I dug it out of the dirt infield, set myself, and threw it six feet over the out stretched glove of the first baseman, who happened to be my older brother.

The years were 1946, 1947, and 1948. World War II had been won, and the surviving veterans were home and attending school, working at jobs in the area, or farming.

The area was central Kansas. We lived in or near small towns of 600 or so, surrounded by farms. These towns were formed six to eight miles apart as the railroads were built east to west in the 1880s and gave the surrounding farmers access to retail stores and transportation.

The playing season, of course, was summer. The temperature was in the 90s with high humidity. It was HOT! Few homes had air conditioning. Businesses might have had some form of crude air conditioning. (more…)