[greymule]

When I was a kid, the various ball fields, mostly at schools, were open to anyone who wanted to use them. In the summer, when a bunch of us would go to the high school baseball field for a pickup game or a practice, the township authorities thought it was great that kids were staying out of trouble. It was inconceivable that someone would try to kick us off.

That was in the 1950s and 1960s. There was only one lighted ballfield in the county, right in the center of Trenton, used by a semipro league. So "curfew" never entered into the picture.

Now, every field in town, including the same ones we used to play on whenever we wanted to, is fenced in, and signs abound forbidding anyone from stepping on the field and threatening legal action against anyone daring to do so.

Several leagues around here do have their own private fields, some of extraordinary quality. (You can't play a pickup game on those, either.)