ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The crack of a bat, the pop of a mitt -- the eternal sounds of boyhood echo every week on a diamond in St. Petersburg. The Kids and Kubs prove you're never too old to play ball.

Ed Morrison died in the third inning. The throw to first was a bit high, forcing Morrison to move off the bag to make the catch. Morrison hung onto the ball, then jerked backward into George Bakewell's arms.

Heart attack. Bakewell, coaching first, made the requisite call to the rescue squad, even though he knew that no one was going to bring Ed Morrison back. The ambulance took Morrison away. Their mood subdued, the boys hung around the ballpark for a while, mourning the loss of their friend and teammate. Six innings remained. Plenty of daylight left. Nothing else to do.

They finished the game.

"Had another fellow, too," Bakewell says. "Casselberry, a Navy man. He used to catch. In between innings, he said, 'I don't feel too good.' He went on the bench. They carried him out."

Bakewell smiles, his eyes reflecting a certain dignity in the way each man refused to die as a prisoner of age. They were alive when they died. What a wonderful contradiction.

"Nice way to go. Nice way to go," Bakewell says. "I hope to die with my spikes on reaching for a ball."

Every year at St. Petersburg's Northshore Park, 34 men gather to pull on their spikes once more, spit defiantly on the calendar and relieve the bludgeoning pangs of growing old.

Their birth certificates insist they must have taken a wrong turn somewhere on the way to a proctologist's appointment. Certainly there is a good game of pinochle back at the nursing home.

But softball?

The Kids and Kubs, as the name suggests, don't much care for stereotypes, even if they do reside in a city of proverbial punch lines for the geriatric generation. ("I don't like St. Petersburg, too many old people." Response: "Old people don't live in St. Petersburg. They live in Tampa . . . Their parents live in St. Petersburg.")

While many of their contemporaries struggle daily under supervised care, the Kids and Kubs have found that old age doesn't condemn them to an agonizing death sentence. The magical elixir exists in their aluminum bats, leather gloves and softballs they keep stowed in their closets or their car trunks.

Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoon from Oct. 27 through April 11, they come here to celebrate the childhood innocence of sports.

To get in, you must be 75.

Or older.

Bakewell is the oldest, born April 27, 1892. He plans to celebrate his 99th birthday on the field with an extensive guest list that includes six children, 20 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren, and four great-great grandchildren.

"If Babe Ruth were alive today, he'd be two years younger than me," Bakewell says as he swings a bat, ready for his turn at the plate.

After grounding out to the second baseman, Bakewell will scratch himself out of the lineup and sell souvenir hats and pins for $5 to help support the team's infrequent travels and charity games.

A handful of fans, mostly retirees, friends and relatives, watch as the men in their traditional uniforms of white shirts, white pants, black belts and black bow ties scatter the sea gulls in the outfield.

As the sea gulls fly away toward a picturesque backdrop of palm trees and clear blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Kids (blue caps) and Kubs (red caps) form two lines at second base. One line extends toward third, the other toward first.

Bakewell asks the crowd to join him in singing the national anthem. He estimates that he has sung the anthem 700 times over 14 years.

"That may be one for the books," Bakewell says.

Two by two, the players march toward home plate and salute the flag. Thus continues a tradition established in 1930, when Evelyn Barton Rottenhouse, a New York actress who came to St. Petersburg for health reasons, formed the Three Quarter Century Softball Club.

The contradictory sequences that follow resemble an out-take of the film "Cocoon": Smooth line drives into the outfield. Ground balls crisply fielded by shortstops.

John Veleber, 77, sends a line drive between fielders that rolls to the fence for a two-run homer. Veleber's speed around the bases would allow him to score in any age-group game.

John Elias, 77, is equally gifted in the outfield. He moves quickly to his left to snag a sinking fly ball, never losing his stride as he throws the ball back into the infield.

Those wonderful scenes are punctuated with fly balls dropping between fielders, a catcher misjudging a throw from the infield that allows two unearned runs to score, and weary legs trying mightily to beat throws to first base.

As a runner misses the coach's sign at third and continues home, a bench jockey laughs: "He ain't got his hearing aid on."

Robert Gosford, indeed, has no hearing in his right ear. So he asks a reporter to pronounce words clearly.

Reporter: "ARE YOU IN GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION?"

Gosford, punching himself in the stomach three times: "Not many men can do that. Not bad for an 86-year-old."

Irvin Holzhueter, 75, wipes off the blood from his left knee after tripping over first base. He is in his second year with the Kids and Kubs after triple-bypass surgery in 1988. "I bet I couldn't even walk two blocks if I didn't play," he says.

Holzhueter didn't hesitate when his doctor showed him the blockage in his heart and recommended a bypass. He wanted the surgery. He wanted to play ball.

Joe Gillard, 83, had surgery in 1976 to implant an artificial hip. "I asked my doctor if I would be able to play. He said, 'I don't make ballplayers. I just ease pain.' I took about six months off. I figured it (the hip) should be part of me by that time. No pain at all, but I hit into a lot of double plays now."

Shortly after the game, Gillard notices that a man in the stands is having trouble moving down the steps. He offers a hand. The man shakes his head when he reaches the final step. "I'm only 65," he says, "and you're helping me?"

In deference to their age, certain logistical considerations are necessary to play the game.

Two bags are placed side-to-side at first base to avoid collisions. The runner tags the outside bag while the first baseman straddles the inside one. No sliding is allowed. A runner "scores" if he crosses a 3-foot white line that runs perpendicular to home plate before the throw reaches the catcher, who stands on the plate. Pete Rose might be disappointed, but at least everyone goes home with their false teeth intact.

There are five outfielders. Games are nine innings. They average 52 games a year all modified-fast pitch. To ensure competitiveness, if a team surges ahead by four games or more, then the opposing team gets to choose a player from the other's roster.

John "Pappy" Hill, pulls into the parking lot in his 1986 metallic blue Izusu Pup. It has a replica of a softball player for a hood ornament something Pappy yanked off an old trophy. He's 78 and went blind in his right eye in 1942 when a wire snapped in his face.

But he's proud to have driven a truck for 56 years without an accident and smiles when he remembers how he kept his professional license by fooling the examiner for years. After correctly identifying the letters on the examination board with his left eye, Pappy would start a conversation, distracting the examiner, eventually covering up his bad eye again when the test resumed.

He might have been a great trucker, but playing out of position in right field, Pappy, 78, loses track of most routine flies. He'd prefer to be pitching for his son's softball team, whose players are mostly in their 30s.

"Sixty-three games, I walked only three people," Pappy says. "Personally, I'd rather play with the young guys. There's more action."

Bakewell has been playing for 23 years. He needs no medication or vitamins, just two quarts of water and fruit juices a day. He has never smoked or drunk alcohol. He eats four small meals a day.

"I've never had a sore arm all my life," he says. "I grew up throwing stones all the time on Dad's farm in Plymouth, Mich. One year I killed seven birds, three of them on the wing, just throwing stones. I could throw stones.

"I didn't play ball much. My dad said, 'If you play ball, you can roll another row of corn.' My dad couldn't read or write. I taught him how to write his name when I was in the third grade. When I got in the eighth grade, I could read the paper. He said, 'What more do you want?' That was the end of my education."

Bakewell moved to St. Petersburg in September of 1950 to sell real estate and insurance. A decade ago Bakewell lost Anna, his wife of 65 years. Bakewell still played softball, but he was losing weight, feeling depressed. "You get used to company," Bakewell said. "I began to climb walls." One of his daughters suggested that he find a lady friend.

Mutual friends arranged the first date. Bakewell knocked on her door. She answered, quickly setting down the rules for the night: "George, there'll be no sex!"

"I said, 'Thank you. I'm 92.' I thought that was a compliment she thought I was still able to do that."

After more than six decades of marriage, Bakewell found the world of modern dating just a bit bewildering. He still isn't sure why one date got amorous after watching "The Lawrence Welk Show" and started rubbing his leg. But he was certain something was right when he met Bonnie at a ballgame.

They chatted in the shade by a bench after the game. He saw her home. On April 17th, they will celebrate their third wedding anniversary. There are other dates he notes on the calendar.

"I want two more years," Bakewell said. "I'd like 25 years. Only one man played when he was over 100." And, in truth, that man never really competed on the field after 96.

Bakewell figures he's still got some good playing days left. "I haven't struck out in two years."

He admits, though, the ball seems to be going straight into the fielders' gloves these days and he may have slowed down a step or two. "First base is a lot farther than it used to be."

As the historian of the Kids and Kubs, Bakewell has chronicled his years in softball with poems, writing more than 400. This is one of his favorites:

Backwards, turn backwards, old time if we may

And make me a boy just again for a day...

Oh yes my friends the years have rolled by, and I know I'm not quite the same.

But thanks be to God, I still enjoy playing the grand old game.