IN SPORTS OUT OF THE PUBLIC EYE, PASSION RUNS DEEP

For some people, sports are recreation. A way to get exercise, have fun and meet people. Some professional athletes play sports for the money fame and glory.

For others, playing sports is a passion. These are the lifers, the die-hards, who just want an opportunity to play. These people do it solely for the love of the game.

They can be a refreshing antidote to the excesses of the “major” professional sports. The world is full of examples of people who play for the love of the game.

This is a three-part series, which will look at who some of these people are, and the sports they play.

PART ONE: BASEBALL PLAYERS ARE THRILLED TO HAVE A PLACE TO PLAY

“Everything about life that’s good, happens in a baseball game,” says Mark Pieraccini.

Pres in his natural environment

Known to his fellow baseball players by his nickname “Pres” (also “Fluff” and “Buck”; never “Mark”), Pieraccini is at Herlihy Field in Whately, Mass.,holding a rake, trying to repair the pitcher’s mound in time for this week’s Thursday Night Baseball pickup game (known as TNB to the regulars). Pres is the brains, heart and backbone behind TNB. He is the first one at the field, grooming the infield dirt, mowing the grass. He serves as the manager and treasurer, sending out emails to determine who is playing each week, and collecting the $8 fee from each player that pays for the umpire and other costs.  

He's also the last one to leave. He loads the bag of bats, crate of balls, and miscellaneous other equipment into his minivan by the backstop, as the few remaining players finish their conversations at the picnic tables and drive home.

PART TWO: HARD WORK IS ITS OWN REWARD FOR WOMEN’S HOCKEY TEAM

It’s 5 a.m. on a Friday on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. It is quiet: The traffic lights are still blinking, and nearly everyone is still asleep. But the members of the UMass Women’s Hockey team have begun arriving at the ice rink in the campus’s Mullins Center to prepare for their third practice of the week. 

Unlike their male counterparts who play their sport, these women are not scholarship athletes; their team isn’t “varsity” or NCAA-regulated. Their organization is a club. And they are giving it everything they have for the love of the game.

“We come here early,” says senior captain Hayley Kuhn of her 5 a.m. pre-dawn arrival at the rink. “We get our mind set in, and then we have to get dressed and that takes at least a half-hour.”

PART THREE: IT IS POSSIBLE TO PLAY HARD AND STILL BE A GOOD SPORT

Imagine this: After a hard-fought, back-and-forth National Football League game, the losing team huddles for a few minutes, then walks over to the opposition, kneels, and serenades them with a song of appreciation. Anyone watching would be shocked by such a display. But in the world of Ultimate Frisbee (just called “Ultimate” in tournaments due to a trademark conflict), it is expected.

“When we were younger and so desperate just to play.”

sang the Ultimate team Gratuitous —to the tune of The Beatles’ “Help”—to team Slow White after a 15 to 3 loss.

“We didn’t stop for any team in our way.

But now those days are gone-Slow White tore up the pitch.

Now we find, we’ve changed our minds, and just want to bitch.

But it’s just so lousy feeling down.

And we’ve got to stop running around like clowns.

Help me get my cleats back on the ground.

Won’t you please, please slow down.”

This man's best friend

In the cow field where Mark “Pres” Pieraccini first played baseball, there was a hole in the ground behind home plate where a farmer had removed a huge rock. At Herlihy Field, in Whately, Mass., which he maintains and were he often plays now, his baseball friends recently placed a huge rock behind home plate with a tribute to his longtime companion “Bugs.”

The Installation

 Ever since Pres started Thursday Night Baseball (TNB)—a pickup game at Herlihy—in 2002, his dog Isaiah (“Bugs” to those who knew him–everyone in TNB has a nickname) has been as much a presence as Pres. For 16 years, at home, work or baseball, Bugs went where Pres went.

Starting a new blog

There is a whole world of sports outside the "major sports"; MLB, NFL, NBA and possibly NHL and MLS in the USA; Football, F1, etc. racing in the rest of the world.

This blog will look at these sports which don't get much coverage, but have competition that can be just as exciting.