Bear Grease - Ep. 343: This Country Life - Baseball

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

This week, Brent's sharing his passion for baseball with some stories from his childhood. He has a special affinity for America's pastime, but his favorite part of it isn't the players - it's the game itself. The similarities he sees between life and baseball are close. You'll have to listen to see if you agree. Batter up! It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.com.

Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Nives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

Baseball. If there's a close second to spending time in the outdoors for me, it's baseball. And for someone who never played it beyond high school, it remains a passion for me. I only follow a handful of players, and I actually met them last year on a coon hunt. They invited me to go on with them. Aidan and Grant Anderson are brothers. They're twins and they're pitchers. Aidan is in the Texas Rangers organization and Grant pitches for,

for the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, the funny thing about that is when they talk to me, all they want to talk about is coon hunting. And all I want to talk about is baseball. Now, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head who won the last World Series without thinking about it real hard, and even then, it would probably be just a guess. Besides the Anderson brothers, the last stats I kept up with were mine when I played. I just liked the game, the history.

and the romance of it. For me, it's truly America's pastime. Bailey and I go to a lot of games here, the Arkansas Travelers, which are the AA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. A perfect even for us is to grab a hot dog or a fried bologna sandwich at the game for supper and cheer for the travelers

and clap along with the guy playing the organ. We don't know any of the players because the good ones don't stick around long and neither do the baby. bad ones. The good ones move on up to the big leagues and the other guys, they just move on. But the atmosphere is all about family and fun. Two things that I never get enough of. I've got a lot to talk about. So let's get to it. This past week, we were on vacation, soaking up the sun on the Emerald Coast of Florida. The main point of our journey was threefold. One was for Bailey to see the ocean

for the first time. Another one was to watch the son of France play in a regional world series baseball tournament and to relax and enjoy each other's company. All of those things in no particular order. However, Bailey C in the ocean for the first time during her short tenure here on Earth was accomplished first and only minutes after we set our bags down inside the big house we'd rented for the week. She tried to play it cool, but you could see the excitement in her.

her eyes as she gazed out at the horizon seeing nothing but incoming waves and the occasional sea goal. A few seconds after her first glimpse, she was standing in the surf, staring south at infinity and literally and figuratively soaking it all in. Clouds in the evening Gulf breeze kept the temperature bay. It was the perfect introduction. The rest of us enjoyed seeing her see it for the first time as much as we did. seeing it ourselves. I asked her later what she thought about it. I was expected to lecture on why hadn't we brought her here before now. The last time we went to the beach, she was still three years away from entering the Reeves family chat. And she said, I liked it. And I would like to go

again sometime, but it smelled weird, and I'd rather go to the mountains. I did not see that coming from a girl who almost has to be made to wear anything other than shorts at gunpoint. Daddy, if you say we're going to the beach, I'll be ready to go and have a good time. But if you give me a choice that's not in New York City, I'm picking the mountains. The mountains, with a love of humanity, it seems there's a tiny little hillbilly hiding inside her head. I blame Clay. Now, counting two sets of peasant. parents, two sets of grandparents, a girlfriend, a best friend, and all the children, we had

enough folks to field a baseball team and a basketball team. Fourteen Arkansases listed on the program as family, either by blood or choice, and we were all there to watch baseball. It's no secret that our family loves baseball and has for as far back as I can remember every cotton picking one of us. My brothers, me and anyone we could scrounge up around the farm to play baseball from my friends that lived only a bikes ride away or the occasional farm hand. The American pastime was our pastime. We played a game called $5.

One person would bat balls to the rest of us positioned all around the yard either by himself or if we had plenty of folks, someone would pitch. Every fly ball you caught was worth a dollar. Every ground ball you caught was worth 50 cents. And when your total catches added up to exactly $5, it was your turn to bat. Make an air a field and a grounder or a fly ball and you'd lose the value of whatever ball that was. Another game we played was called flies and skinners that was basically scored the same way. Once you caught the predetermined amount of each, it was your turn to bat. And we spent hours and hours playing each in our three.

acre front yard. It took forever to mow it, but when we finished it, man, it was quite the ballpark. Breaks would come and we drank from the hose or someone would have a watermelon busted and we'd go through one of them like grass goes through a goose. It wouldn't last long. Then, back to the game. Baseball dust was just a natural part of summer. It could be too hot to fish, and by that I mean it could be too hot for the fish to bite. But it was never too hot to play. But it was never too hot to play. baseball. Never, regardless of the time of day. They say you can always go home when you can't go anywhere else. Well, for us, when you couldn't do anything else outside, you could always play baseball. Being inside was not an option. There were three channels on the TV and unless you like

soap operas or Sesame Street, outside was where the fun took place, no matter of the temperature. I've told the story before, but I accent you a little bit of the same. I accentual. to a different part of it. And for those who haven't heard it, I'm going to tell it again. And I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest version of it, and it's a good story. I like to hear it myself. But after a hot summer day of playing baseball in the front yard, we took a break to go inside and eat dinner, which is what the rest of humanity calls lunch except for a few of us die-hard traditions.

Anyway, my brother Tim was a senior in high school, or brother Chuck was a sophomore, and I was headed to the sixth grade. All the chores had been done. It was too hot for anything else but baseball. A metric ton of fried bologna sandwiches, potato chips, a Kool-Aid later, and the game was about to start. I was first out the door and there laid the bat, a 32-inch wooden Adirondack baseball bat made from the finest white ash

a Yankee tree farmer could grow. The handle was thin and it fit my hands good, even though it could have been a few inches shorter. It was light, and I could handle it well. And I heard my brothers talking inside the house as I stood on the porch, and they were arguing over whose turn it was to bat. It was my turn. I called it before we stopped to eat.

They must not have heard me. Oh, they heard me all right. They just didn't care. But I cared, and I'd had enough of them cheating me out of my turn. They could run faster than me and would jump in front of me when I was only a fly or a skinner away from batting. Now they were going to jip me out of starting off the afternoon session. So I decided to kill the first one that walked out the door. Not really.

I was just going to give them a little watt four on top of the noggin with that bat when they stepped out on the porch. Mama had an old milk churn sitting beside the front door on the left side. And to compensate for them being taller than me, I stood up on that churning and I waited for the first one to step outside the door. It didn't matter to me which one it was. They had both danced at my expense and now it was time to pay the fiddler. It sounded like a cartoon bunk when the barrel of that bat made square contact with the top of Tim's head. He staggered toward the edge of the porch trying not to lose his balance and during the three or four seconds, He followed to stay conscious, I realized then that I had chosen poorly.

He caught me before I made it in the loft of the barn. I was one rung away from sanctuary and being able to keep him beat away from the only access to the loft until Mama got home. But I was not built for speed, a malady that has haunted me all my life. He had me squalling in very short one. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road.

I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a pool of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there.

But he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whistle. dispersed suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple. eye heart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, that's sound, and one other stand out to me as core memories associated with baseball. Both of them attributed to the crack of a bat. The other one was my first home run.

I don't know how many I hit in Little League. If you told me that the one I'm going to tell you about now was the only one, I couldn't argue with you because that one shocked me more than a little. it did anyone else. I was batting cleanup, and Darrell Harvey, a classmate and childhood friend, was pitching with the opposition. Merchants and Planners Bank. It was early in the season, and every team was scratching and clawing to establish themselves

as the ones to beat. I played for Horace Brothers, a car dealership in town. Our uniforms were green jerseys trimmed in white, yellow breeches with white pinstripes that stopped just below the knee and green baseball stirrups worn over white socks. I wore number five like my favorite major leaguer, George Brett, of the Kansas City Royals. The count was two and two, and I had looked at four pitches and never took the bat off my shoulder. I looked at the first base coach, Mr. Mike Meady, and he looked back at me as if to say, why are you toting that bat if you ain't going to swing it?

I checked third base. and Mr. Pat Ballantyne was looking at me the same way. Time to go to work, Brent. Darrell started his wind-up and grooved a fastball right down the middle of the plate. They looked as big as a pown of cornbread. I sent it over the fence to the left center with the easiest swing I've ever taken. It was almost effortless. And the sound of that ball leaving that wooden bat was pure and unmistakable.

Nothing else sounds like it, and when you hear it, you know it. right away. Ted Williams, arguably one of the greatest hitters of all times, said the hardest thing to do in baseball is to hit a round baseball with a round bat squarely. I'd say that's right, considering that if you do that three times out of ten over the course of your professional career, you go to the Hall of Fame. I looked up at Mr. Media as I touched first base during my victory lab,

and I remember him smiling and pat me on the back. and saying, slow down, son, they can't get you out. Hitting home runs was easy. I decided right then I'd do that every time. I had three more at Batch during that beat down of merchants and planners, and Darrell struck me out all three times. Hitting homers wasn't as easy as I thought. Another front yard baseball session that summer was interrupted

when our brother Chuck walked out on the porch to tell Tim and I that Elvis died. It was August the 16th, 1977. I remember what Chuck was wearing when he walked out on the porch to tell us I can see it as plain as day. It's funny the things you remember that are associated with historic events. Baseball has been intertwined with rural life as much or more than any other sport. The threads of each woven in the fabric of Americana that remain as true today as they did back then. bats for kids are aluminum now with teams having multiple uniforms and batting gloves and sliding gloves and fielding gloves and pitching gloves and games played on turf painted to look like dirt with removable mounds to accommodate different levels of baseball but the constant throughout is the baseball itself nine to nine and a quarter inches in circumference and a weight between five and five and a quarter ounces

Now we watched kids from all over the country play ball and the impressive Florida heat and I was reminded immediately of how hot it was when we played at home and how just like me back then they didn't seem to notice it much. Teammates, friends, coaches, umpires, family, people of all ages gathered to watch a game. A game played by children who some grown-ups expected to perform like adults and when they didn't, those grown-ups acted like children.

Now, there wasn't much of it, and in fact, there was very little. But we all know it happens. Our boys played well. They tried hard, and they battled back after two initial losses, and they finished well. They didn't win the series, but they didn't finish last either. And had they lost every game but tried above all else to win, you'd have to count that as a success as well. What will it matter ten years from now? It won't. They'll always remember that experience,

but they'll remember in detail how hard they tried or if they didn't. I vaguely remember the sight of that first home run boss sailing over that fence in 1977. But I remember vividly walking back to the dugout with my friends cheering and laughing and celebrating together. It was an individual achievement that stands in the ship. shadow of a team celebration. And whether you're playing for Hargis Brothers Little League team and Warren, Arkansas, where the Kansas City rolls, it doesn't matter. The cuffs of your britches can be above your knee or down around your ankles.

You can swing a metal bat or one made from wood. You can play under the lights or under the sun. But at every level, you have to hit, throw, and catch. That's the three elements of baseball. Everything else is just extra. That's how kids can gather in any space wearing anything with nothing other than a stick and a ball and have fun. It really is that simple. Food, shelter, and clothing are the three basic necessities of life.

We add things to it to make it more enjoyable, exciting, rewarding, or comfortable, whatever adjective you want to use for every desired amenity. The same holds true for baseball. signs for hitting, signs for stealing, signs for pitching, shifting the outfield, shifting the infield, lefties versus righties, and all the analytics that go into the game now. The game can theoretically go on forever, like life you're not exactly sure when it will end. That's the allure of it for me and the main similarity I see in each of them is life like baseball is about enjoying the game.

It can be in the front. of a country home, an empty lot in town, a little league field at the YMCA, or the finest manicured field in the major leagues. Baseball is a game that mirrors the ebb and flow of life. Metaphor for patience and practice skill of being able to hit whatever's thrown at you. Life has some nasty curveballs. I thank y'all so much for listening to us here on the Barry Grays Channel. Be clay and old Lake Pickle, work hard to break.

you the best content that we can. Just subscribe to the channel and rip the knob off. All right, before I get out of here, I've got to give you some news. July the 18th, this country life hats are hitting the website. You've been able to get them there, check them out. They're really cool. I'm really proud of how they look. They're going to be great.

So until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing off. Y'all be careful. First Lights Fieldwear collection is made for the work. that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts.

Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.com.