From the time I was 8 years old, all my friends and I did during summer vacation was ride around town to round up enough kids to play sandlot baseball or “500″ or “workup.” That’s it. That’s what we did all day long. Then, when school started, and whenever there wasn’t any snow on the ground, we used every minute of our 10 minute recess playing baseball. And you should know this was in Iowa, not far from Dyersville where “The Field of Dreams” was filmed.

Then, when we were 9 or 10, one of our friend’s dads organized a little traveling girls’ softball team. We were the Cardinals: our uniform was cutoff jeans, white button shirts with a felt cutout of a cardinal pinned on our chest. That lasted until we were 13 and our family moved away.

Across the miles and years, there have been many other experiences with the diamond: Varsity Girls’ softball at the American School in Manila, pick up softball on Sunday afernoons in Tempe during college, a great team in South Phoenix (where my skin color made me a standout, regardless of my playing ability!), women’s rec league once I was an adult, coed rec league and then I became a permanent spectator.

I morphed into soccer-mom, little-league-mom, youth league basketball-mom, high school sports-mom. Through it all, baseball was my favorite sport to play and watch, so I was really sad when my older two children left the diamond behind.

Now, through a cruel trick of time, I am checking off the few remaining games in my youngest son’s high school baseball career. In my car, year round, are camp chairs, stadium chairs, an extra blanket, umbrella, water bottles and sunscreen. On game days, I am armed with my Treo, on which I have a great scorekeeping program (so as to stay focused on the game and not get seduced into idle chatter). I observe the diamond, glittering in the sun, from my spot in the bleachers, rather than my old spot on 2nd or 1st base.

We live about two hours away from the nearest pro team, but I imagine I’ll spend future years watching the high school and local Junior College team long after son #3 has moved into the next phase of his own life.

For now, watching him, I am transported back to endless games of catch with my Grandpa, and those makeshift diamonds we made out of little patches of grass and pieces of cardboard. I don’t wear any diamonds in my ears or on my finger. The diamonds I love and can’t live without are made of grass and surrounded by a fence.