Today kids and parents, who participate in local baseball leagues, will be out in full force on Seventh Avenue for the annual baseball parade, which starts at 10AM at Carroll Street and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. As I remember, the teams meet up on the side streets about an hour earlier than the parade itself.

The  parade marks the beginning of the Brooklyn baseball season and it’s quite a site to see Seventh Avenue brimming with kids instead of cars from Carroll Street all the way to Ninth Street.

For many kids it’s their first time in uniform so it’s a pretty exciting day. I especially like to see the little kids — the cute 3,4,5 year olds in their gear.

The parade ends at the band shell in Prospect Park and many local politicians and officials will be on hand to celebrate the day. There will be lots of speeches and loads of cliches about sports, life and the nature of community. The Brooklyn Dodgers will be evoked again and again by some of the older speakers no doubt.

Ah yes, it brings back memories. My son played baseball with the 78th precinct from kindergarten until he was about 11. I’m amazed that he hung in there for so long as he’s not the sportiest guy. The outfield is a great place to dream until a ball comes your way and then it’s high drama.

There were many highs and lows during his baseball career and lots of trophies (because in Park Slope everyone gets a trophy). His kindergarten team was especially cute. The kids didn’t know you were supposed to run after they batted the ball and the parents would all yell “Run, run!”

The parents we met were pretty low key about the whole baseball thing. We didn’t experience the hyper-competitive, cut throat behavior we’d heard about.

It was Park Slope after all.

The parents I knew did a lot of socializing during the practices and games. Every so often they’d take a break from their conversations and ask, “Who’s winning?”

But there was joy in watching the kids improve and really learn the skills of the game. And don’t get me wrong: joy in winning. And when the kids lost a game we watched silently as they shook hands with the other team and tried to take it in stride.

And yeah: when my son hit a base run or a made a good outfield play we were ecstatic.

Ecstatic.