All Good Things Come to an End: The Final Seasons That Closed a Childhood Era

Every baseball story has its final inning. Not always a dramatic walk-off, not always a sweeping triumph—sometimes it ends quietly, like the sun lowering over a field you’ve played on for years. For Peter Scariano, the chapter titled All Good Things Come to an End reflects that bittersweet truth: childhood ends, seasons close, teams dissolve, and the game shifts from being the core of life to something cherished from the sidelines.

By the time Peter reached his final seasons in organized youth baseball, he carried more experience than most kids his age. He had lived through Little League heartbreak, Babe Ruth challenges, dusty neighborhood classics, unforgettable summers, and the slow emergence of life beyond baseball—school demands, friendships, responsibilities, and the new awareness that growing up means losing some of the freedoms you once took for granted.

But endings in baseball rarely arrive cleanly. They sneak up one game, one season, one responsibility at a time.

As the seasons passed, Peter found himself not just older, but different. The boy who once sprinted to the field every free second now found his life filled with other commitments. School at Kelly High was intense—crowded halls, packed classrooms, and the social navigation required of a school with over 2,400 teenagers. Then there were the daily responsibilities at home, the expectations of being one of the older boys in the neighborhood, and—not least of all—the growing importance of his relationship with Kathy.

None of these replaced baseball, but they crowded the space around it. The game that had once dominated every spare moment now shared time with the realities of adolescence.

Still, he played on.

He continued as a catcher, still working the plate with grit and intelligence. The job never got easier. Fastballs from older pitchers hit harder. Curveballs broke sharper. Runners stole with more confidence. The throws to second seemed to stretch farther every year. But Peter stayed in the position not because it was easy, but because it was his. Being a catcher was something he had earned through bruises, stings, hard lessons, and the stubborn determination that had carried him from the dusty fields of Garfield Ridge to the full-sized diamonds of Babe Ruth baseball.

And then, like all youth leagues, the seasons ended.

Not with a grand finale. Not with a final dramatic game. They ended the way childhood things often do: gradually. One year, you’re the youngest on the team. Then you’re in the middle. Then suddenly, you’re the oldest—one of the veterans everyone looks up to—and after that, there’s nowhere else to go.

A boy ages out. The league becomes for the kids behind him. The uniform hangs a bit differently. The dugout no longer feels like the only place he belongs.

Peter felt those transitions deeply. Each season brought fewer opportunities to just “go play” without thinking. Life had begun pressing in around the game.

But he didn’t view this shift as a tragedy. If anything, it was a reflection of how much baseball had shaped him already. The game had given him lessons in leadership, resilience, teamwork, and humility—qualities that would carry him into the next phases of life.

It also gave him memories sharper than photographs. He remembered the fields vividly: the cracked dirt at CID Field, the sound of the expressway in the background, the fence line where outfielders chased fly balls into metal rattle. He remembered the friends who had become like brothers. He remembered catching Tony’s pitches, reading his signals, sharing victories and frustrations, and feeling the unique bond only a pitcher and catcher can truly understand—made even deeper because they were twins.

And even though the organized seasons eventually ended, baseball didn’t disappear from his life. It simply moved. It became something quieter—something internal. A memory he could revisit anytime he smelled freshly cut grass or heard the crack of a wooden bat. A feeling that lived in the muscles and settled into the heart.

There’s a particular ache that comes from realizing a childhood era is ending. It’s not sadness exactly—not if the era was lived fully. It’s a bittersweet acceptance that things change, that people grow, and that the moments we love most can’t last forever.

But the beauty is this: endings make memories possible. And Peter’s memories were rich, layered, and unforgettable—filled with games played under fading summer light, laughter drifting across fields, the sound of cleats on dirt, and the glove he always dreamed of but never owned.

The seasons ended. But what baseball gave him did not.

In the quiet way life works, the game that defined his childhood became the story he would carry for the rest of his life. A story that, years later, would become The Quest for the Wilson A2000—a memoir built from innings that never left him.