As longtime major league baseball players Steve Trout, Jay Johnstone and Willie Wilson work with young players -- as they will do today at Engel Stadium in a free clinic primarily sponsored by Chattem -- they preach fun as well as fundamentals.

"I do a lot of camps," Wilson said Friday, "and I see a lot of parents who want their son or daughter to be a superstar. The parents are too serious. It used to be that you played all the sports in their seasons. If you're playing baseball year-round as a kid at 12 or 13, you're going to be burned out.

"My dad made me play all of them, and I enjoyed it," Johnstone said. "I didn't really do anything in baseball till high school."

Wilson is heavily involved with Team Smile, which provides free dental screening and treatment for underprivileged children. The name also applies to his approach in baseball camps.

"Every time I talk to kids and parents," the two-time American League All-Star said, "I say to the parents, 'Let your kid tell you what he likes, not you telling him what he likes.'"

It's not only boys and girls being pressured into single sports at early ages, Wilson said. It's being pigeonholed into specific positions.

"I would say as a parent, let your kid play all the positions," he added. "Let him be a baseball player."

Johnstone, who does a lot of Little League work, told of a father coming up to him at a game and asking what he needed to do to help his son learn to hit the outside pitch.

"I asked him how old his son was, and he said, 'Ten,'" Johnson related. "I said, 'Ten?!' I told him, 'Sir, there are a lot of guys in the big leagues who can't hit the outside pitch. Let him grow a little bit.' Some parents just try to push, push, push."

Johnstone was known as baseball's "merry prankster" in his 21 years in the big leagues, and Trout -- a 12-year veteran -- also had a reputation for being a little offbeat. His dad, who preceded him as a major league pitcher, was "Dizzy," after all.

Wilson, who spent most of his 19 years with the Kansas City Royals and was a two-time American League All-Star, was "one of the guys people did pranks to," he said.

Johnstone laughed wickedly as Wilson recounted one of the gags with which he was victimized.

"People still do them," Johnstone said, "but not as much, and it's all in the clubhouse. It's not on the field or in public. Because of the media today, you can't get away with anything."

The modern player makes too much money to be acting like a kid, supposedly, Johnstone added. Players should be businesslike. That's the prevailing attitude outside the clubhouse, anyway.

And, indeed, many of today's players seem to be consumed with business, he and Wilson noted. They hang out not with teammates but with "entourages." They get away as soon as possible after games.

"They don't have that togetherness we used to have," said Johnstone, who played for eight big-league teams and had a career batting average of .267. He hit .295, .329, .318 and .284 for the Phillies in 1974-77 and batted .294 with the Padres and .307 with the Dodgers in 1979 and '80.

"The championship teams I played on really had that. We spent a lot of time together, and we enjoyed being around each other and trying to pull things on each other."

Johnstone went 7-for-9 for the Phillies in the 1976 NLCS, when they were swept by Cincinnati, and his pinch-hit two-run homer in the 1981 World Series propelled the Dodgers to a tying win and ultimately the championship. He also was part of the Yankees' 1978 Series championship.

"I played in the '70s, '80s and '90s, and when I first came up I thought the atmosphere was perfect for baseball," said Wilson, who batted .285 and stole 668 bases for his career. "It was a great era. About the mid-'80s, though, it started to change. As the money situation changed, we went from 21 veterans and four rookies to four veterans and 21 rookies, it seemed like."

Johnstone and Steve Trout were teammates on the Chicago Cubs team that ended a long playoff drought in 1984.

"When I played for the White Sox, Steve's dad was in charge of community service, and he would get me to go to schools and places like that when other guys didn't want to," Johnstone said. "I got to know his dad pretty good, and then I got to play with Steve. It's a small world out there."

They're still community ambassadors for baseball -- and, as always, having fun.

A similar free clinic is set for Nov. 21 at the 79-year-old stadium. Like today's, it is set up for young players in the morning and teenagers in the afternoon.