<Begin Segment 6>

SF: You were mentioning sports. That must have been a favorite activity of kids. So how did the kids get organized for baseball? Where did they play and all that?

TS: Well, before we were too organized, the neighborhoods had their own teams. The Main Street bunch -- we organized our own teams, and played with teams our age level from, say, Washington Street. And then we'd play up at -- it used to be -- what used to be called the old Dugdale field on -- what is that street there -- ? Yesler, between Twelfth and Thirteenth. At one time, that used to be the old Seattle professional field, as I understand. But by the time we were old enough, why, it was just an empty lot, and we used to play, uh, football there and some baseball.

SF: How old were the kids when they got organized into these kinds of neighborhood teams?

TS: Well, I would say starting from grade school sometime. I can't recall the exact age.

SF: How would they arrange a particular game? Say, the Main Street group wanted to play a game, and...

TS: I don't know, somehow. [Laughs] We meet someplace and -- or maybe met at school and say, "Well, we'll play at Dugdale. How about next Saturday at 10 a.m.?" And we'd show up. And there was no referees or anything. So somehow, if there are older kids around there, they, they'd become the officials, I guess. But I can't recall that. And then we also played at Liberty Field, which was farther north, close to where Pacific School used to be. Then I went -- from Bailey Gatzert, I went to Central School, which was a middle school. And then from there, I went to Broadway High for four years. That's the way we went from the primary to the central, middle school and then to high school for four years.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.