I grew up in a small New England town (pop 1,800) during the 50’s and 60’s. My experience was just like in the article. We did have 3 little league teams where we wore hand me down color jerseys, but most of our time was spent in pick up games down at the field. Three games in a day was not that unusual. I don’t live in New England anymore, and I doubt if the kids there now play like we did. Oh yeah, baseball was just one activity. Other activities involved swimming at the local pond, playing ice hockey at the same pond, building tree houses, building rafts, playing in barns, kick the can, playing horseshoes, exploring in the woods, picking blueberries, rasberries, and blackberries, bringing in the hay, fishing, climbing trees, etc...etc...etc... Those truly were the good old days.
Spent summers of 68 & 69 playing pickup games in Manchester, MO for hours on end. Played all day at the local ballpark till they kicked us for for the leagues.