I also have fond memories of our community's Friday night baseball games every summer. We played at a lighted baseball diamond at a school that was no longer being used. The electric company would turn on the lights just for three months and a collection would be taken up every week to help pay for the lights. My mother also sold cold drinks to help pay for the electricity.
Anyone could play baseball...from age 6 to 99! We'd just pick two captains and they would divide up the players. The big guys would go easy on the little kids, but not on each other. More than once we'd have to go into an adjacent cornfield to look for the ball after a homerun hit. By the time I was 14 or so, I could hit pretty good and remember the satisfaction I felt when the bigger guys would back up as I came up to bat.
For those kids who didn't want to play, there was an old set of swings and a merry-go-round. Most of the adults would bring lawn chairs and watch us play and visit with neighbors.
That old school has long since been torn down and now the land where the baseball diamond and school were is cultivated fields. I miss those old days, but have many many great memories of our baseball games.