Minor Stories:
One Little League Season
Prologue
I never played organized baseball. Back in the day before minivans roamed the earth, uniforms,
umpires and coaches were unknown to us. Little League was for kids who couldn’t get picked
on the real teams; the timeless stream of boys emulating Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg and
Derrick Lee at Potawatomi Park on Chicago’s Northside.
A rag tag group; cleats, three hundred dollar NASA technology bats and specialized hitting
instructors weren’t part of the play lot landscape back then. Neither were parents. In a
densely packed, working class neighborhood, parents were superfluous for our recreational
pursuits. A small bit of greenspace, some hand me down mitts and a few nefariously acquired
empty Coke bottles from the local laundromat cashed in for deposit and spent on a new ball
were all we really needed.
We worked out the rules on our own. The big tree was foul. If you hit the ball onto the
tracks or into old man Jankowski’s yard, you had to retrieve it yourself. Importantly, we
mediated our own disputes. If you say you tipped the ball when everyone knew you swung and
missed, it was on your conscience and you just dropped yourself a few notches in the all
important team selections the next few weeks. No one wants a whiner or a cheater on their
team.
If it wasn’t snowing and you weren’t held captive in school, you were there. Oh the summers!
Wolf down some cereal and bike over to the park for the morning team selection. A toss of
the bat, some fast handwork to figure out who gets first pick, and then the excruciating,
alternating selections. No performance evaluation since has been as weighty. With a brother
two years older, I usually played with “the big kids” and always found myself in center field. I
have many failings, but visual acuity and speed are not (well, were not) among them. To run
down a fly ball no one thinks you’ll catch up to is, in my small world, still my very favorite thing.
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Defense and base running were my hallmarks, and have shaped my character more than I likely
realize. There is a responsibility catchers and centerfielders share. You are, both, the last
resort for the team. Each ball that gets behind you is very publicly known, and very privately
felt. With each ball headed our way, we all secretly chant to ourselves “don’t screw up, don’t
screw up” while shouting “I Got It, I Got It”.
Much has been written about the game’s impact on the national character.
Its pastoral,
clockless charms are, indeed, wonderful. But my favorite parts are that baseball is difficult, that
it is played in a manner where teamwork is evident to all and, most importantly, that the joy of
the game is unmarred by hostility. You can play baseball intensely and competitively without
ever being a jerk.
No chop blocks. No hard fouls. No hip checks. No putting someone into a wall. The only
players who ever get whacked are the unnaturally deft interior infielders executing double plays
and the resolute and well padded catchers. That, and any showoff player the next time they
step into the batters box. There is an elegance to baseball’s highly nuanced, sparse employ of
aggression that the world would do well to emulate.
It would be a much better place if we
simply and happily, just tried our best; returning to the dugout without anger when we struck
out and chatting up the first basemen when we got a hit.
In that late summer swoon of 1969, we died a little for the first of many times with our friendly
confines heroes. The “next years” would come and go. Minivans would be invented. Parents
would become necessary – or so they think – for childhood recreation. And my own son
would start to play the game and would need a coach for his team.
I never played organized baseball. But then, love is a disorganized thing.
Skills
Swallows return to Capistrano, Minnesota snowmelt rolls over Dam #15 and Little League
begins. Spring is here. The 51st season of Davenport Southeast Little League begins, in earnest,
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at the “Sports Bubble” on Brady. It is a heady year for Southeast. On the cusp of the Holy
Grail other Davenport teams have secured; playing in the Little League World Series, Southeast
is doing well, finishing 1, 2, 3 in last year’s city tournament. Expectations are high.
But I’m a minor league manager. My job, along with coach Steve from next door, is to teach
basic skills and not ruin kids on their way to the majors. On their way to the majors has at
least a double meaning. As the kids get to be 10, 11 and 12, they move up to the “major
league” level of Little League. My son will be a major leaguer next year. Another meaning –
the real major leagues – is so unlikely for kids at this level that most parents don’t give it a
second thought. There are a few, however…
It is cold outside, but hundreds of perpetually running kids and cheering parents attending
multiple soccer games have heated the bubble into a rain forest of sweat and glee.
The
ballplayers start to arrive. Some of the older ones, having cast their lot in life, look askance at
the soccer players, incessantly in motion pretenders to the throne of the national pastime. The
hardcore don’t even look as they drop their bags and slowly start to rotate their throwing arms
in a Pavlovian ballet. Spring is here.
Late summer, fall and winter have added height, heft and some new hairdos to the boys I know
from last year, but their smiles are the same. They say “Hey Coach, I’m moving up the majors
this year!” and show me a new batting stance they are working on. Boys from two and three
years ago joke with me about the Cubs blowing it again, and about other pre-adolescent life
drama. The younger kids, moving up from the coach pitch rookie league, are either bewildered
or reverential. Someday, they’ll be at ease jokesters too, and it is not lost on Steve or me how
special it is to be some small part of their lives for a few years.
It is officially called the “Skills Demonstration”. Eighty or so boys demonstrating their baseball
prowess for the assembled coaches, who will be drafting players before the season starts. It is
madness, trying to ascertain the quality of a player by seven pitched balls to hit and fielding less
than ten combined grounders and flys. But there we all are, with our clipboards and pencils,
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trying to make sense of the bedlam. In your second or third year, you’ll have developed some
system. If it’s your first year, you don’t stand a chance.
I score throwing and catching on a 1 – 5 scale, with my son’s skills the benchmark against which
I judge every other boy. How else could you do it? There isn’t enough time to watch a few
dozen and establish a baseline based on the bell curve of the day. My son wants to peek and
know his score, but I have his in code. Some coaches are obviously more sophisticated, and I’m
already worrying whether I’m letting my team down by not having some fancy spreadsheet,
powered by a laptop. Then, the pencil breaks…
Hitting is far more complicated to score. Did he get good pitches to hit? Did he miss, but have
a good swing? Could I fix the swing? Does he just need glasses? Do I need glasses? Steve
counts how many balls get hit and I concentrate on form. It is too difficult to do both at once.
Seven pitches go by in about fifteen seconds and, there you have it, the sum total of information
you have to work with. But not for the shrewd. They’ve been watching every move and
interaction. Not of the kids. Heck, the kids are all terrific. They are all aspiring ballplayers.
Coaches in the know have been watching the parents. Do they interact positively with their
children and others? Are they supportive, but not over bearing? Are they even there, or were
the kids dropped off as they made a dash for a drive up latte?
Throwing, catching and hitting are scored in the bubble that morning, but the score that counts
is parenting. Spring training is eternal for parents, coaching their children for life’s major league.
Drafted
The back room at Wiseguy’s Pizza. It sounds like a setting from the Sopranos. But Tony and
his mercurial band are nowhere to be found. There is principled work ahead; the minor league
draft. A week after the cattle call “Skills Demonstration” and a day after the make up date, the
minor league managers settle in for two hours of sifting and sorting.
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There are eight minor league teams this year. Ultimately, each team will have 12 – 14 players.
Every boy and girl who signs up, plays. Southeast Little League takes everyone with an interest
in the game. From kids so afraid they can’t bring themselves to swing the bat, to stars recruited
by the glamorous, expensive, traveling teams. Add to the skill mix an age range from as young
as six to as old as eleven, and you have the makings of a team. You get to keep your own son
or daughter and any kids you had last year that are now eight. The nine and ten year olds are
all drafted, as are the seven year olds. Families stay together, and maneuvering to draw a pair
of aces - two highly skilled siblings - can be the makings of a dynasty.
Beverages tell all. Some go with soda, some with beer. Some start with one and switch to the
other. There are a few pitchers of each and they are shared with the communal ease of men
comfortable in each other’s company. This is supposed to be competitive, but my compatriots
recognize we are all in this together. The notion is reinforced with the collective groans from
the crowd when the names of players poached by the major league managers are read. Red
lines cross out names on the tops of all our lists. Oh, what could have been.
A strategy is helpful, at least in theory. Build for the future, or try to make this “the year”?
Assemble kids from the neighborhood, or go after the All-Stars?
Ballplayers with good
attitudes, or great skills? Someone with a big yard for the end of season party, or a parent who
brings excellent cookies? All questions answered, for the most part, when you pick your draft
number from the hat. My pick isn’t quite last of eight, but it is close. Strategy meets reality.
Reality wins, as it often does.
We’ve all compiled our data from the skills demonstration into various scoring methodologies.
Is it reassuring, or is it frightening, how similar our secret rankings are? Nine times out of ten
you can predict which kid is going next in the draft. It reassures you to believe your next pick
is the right choice. It makes you wonder if the manager has inside information when he reaches
down a dozen players on your list to choose the next draftee. I’m guessing, excellent cookies.
But what really makes you wonder is how we all come to remarkably similar conclusions, based
on seeing many of these kids for not more than a few minutes. Sure, the standouts from last
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year linger in your memory. But these kids you saw once at the skills demonstration and
scribbled down a score and maybe a note to jog your memory? We don’t really know these
kids, and we are all kidding ourselves that we do. It is human nature, believing you know more
than you really do about someone based on a few minutes of interaction, or watching them. It
does give you pause to consider being on your best behavior, more often. And giving everyone
the benefit of the doubt.
The good news in the backroom of Wiseguy’s Pizza is how the tension, and pretension to know
more than you do, dissipates by the second round. Your dreams of a perfect season were
dashed by the major league managers, and if you can just get a couple kids who can pitch the
ball somewhere near the plate, you are hoping there will be batters on the other team who
have less hand / eye coordination than desire to swing. Strategy, again. By the fourth or fifth
rounds, the prospective draftees are all new to facing kids, all a few years older, trying to strike
them out. It’s pretty much a random gambit.
We don’t talk about it because … well, we are guys and the NCAA tournament is on the TV,
but if you think for just a minute, you recognize it is all mostly a random gambit. What we saw,
how we interpreted it, what number we drew when the hat was passed. How we ever made it
to the backroom of Wiseguy’s Pizza.
We’ve all been drafted. First, by a family. Later, by an interest, that became a job, that became
a career. By someone who looked a little longer at us, a little more kindly, and ended up
marrying us. By fate, passing on what we think we know about a child’s game to our children.
Wise guys? We’ll see.
The Early Scouting Report
The draft complete, Team Kone features thirteen players, ranging from seven to ten years old.
In prior years, I’ve had players as young as six and as old as eleven on the same team. Teaching
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baseball to that range of ages was akin to being an instructor in a one room schoolhouse. I
suspect many a teachers union was born of such unworkably absurd circumstances.
My prior experience leads me to not draft Josh’s younger brother Ryan, playing in the coach
pitch “Rookie” league. I wonder if I’ll later regret the decision. Ryan is just six, but he could
instruct Pete Rose on hustle. He already has good skills, and is going to be a fine ballplayer.
Last year, I let him practice with the team and be our official batboy. We’ll do the same this
year. It is not really a decision I make, per se. I couldn’t keep him off the field if I tried. Like
little brothers everywhere, his presence is an inexorable, unconscious fact of logistics and birth
order.
Six players are returning from last year; Colin, Mitch, Josh, Liam, Jacob B and Zach. Of the
seven new players, I only know Noah from last year. With a rifle right arm, he was my first
draft pick and is my best hope for starting pitcher.
I make phone calls to all the parents to tell them when our first practice will be, and have my
first chat with the parents of the seven boys new to the team. I ask about each boy’s prior
experience, what positions they have played and like to play and try to gauge parental
expectations for the season. It is an inexact science and I wonder what I’d say about my own
son if called by a coach. Would I, could I, describe him accurately?
I’ll try. An affinity for baseball appears to be genetic in the Malin clan, that much is clear. What
is also clear is family genetics sometimes takes a circuitous route. Colin is a big kid, built more
like two of his uncles than his parents. As we play catch in the backyard, I can’t help but recall
decades of playing ball with my brother Gene. Gene and Colin’s physicality; blond hair, blue
eyes, sturdy build, even throwing mechanics, is uncannily similar. It is just like I am somewhere
between five and twenty five, playing catch with my brother.
Like Gene, Colin is blessed with power I never possessed. He has knocked balls to the outfield
fences since his days of coach pitch and once smacked a ball so hard at batting practice he tore
a perfect, baseball sized hole in the plastic bucket of balls on the mound. Better the bucket,
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which we have kept as a keepsake, than my shin. He is a prototypical catcher, strong to the
point of being immovable, with quick hands and a good arm. He can throw out runners trying
to steal and once inadvisably snared a foul tip with his bare hand for an out as it darted off the
bat.
Well schooled on the low key, workman like style of real ballplayers, Colin can be a tad too
casual at times. No one is perfect, and this is something to work on this year, along with his
desire to knock a ball over the fence and, with a dearth of pitching, the team’s need for him to
take the mound.
Three boys from last year also have some pitching potential. Josh and Mitch pitched with some
regularity last year and Jacob B also took the mound. Jacob prefers to catch though, and he is
quite good at it. I’m confident with Jacob B and Colin, we’ll be fine at catcher. But a new Little
League rule this year precludes players who pitch from rotating to catcher in the same game.
We’ll have to build some extra catching capacity with the new boys. I’m happy to have each of
the returning boys back. They are all good kids I’ve never had a moment of trouble with.
Josh is a solid ballplayer. He can play any position well, although he doesn’t like catcher. In
contrast to his constantly energized younger brother Ryan, Josh has an almost laconic manner.
I always know something has gone particularly right when he smiles.
Jacob B is a good ballplayer too. He likes catching so much he has his own gear. He is a smart
player, does well at the plate and is an excellent base runner. He takes instruction well and has
a good understanding of the game.
Mitch, from next door, has blazing speed. His feet go so fast, they barely seem to touch the
ground. The youngest of three brothers, he has the well rounded physical skills of someone
growing up in a Petri dish of testosterone. He is among the best athletes on the team and will
certainly be the fastest kid on any field we play.
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Liam is terrific, one of the most earnest and polite kids I’ve ever met. He has a sincere interest
in improving his skills and works hard at it. He is a good, developing ballplayer growing in
height at a pace that rivals summer corn.
Zach is a delightful kid, with a wry sense of humor. Another good, developing ballplayer, he is
small in stature but big in heart. He has a reliable glove, good speed and plays any position
without complaint. One of my favorite attributes, though, is his good natured teasing of my at
times unnaturally optimistic dugout exortations. We once had a brief debate about whether
we were down by ten runs, which can seem a little challenging, or a just a touchdown and field
goal.
With six characters to start with, I’m looking forward to meeting my other seven young
charges, and getting the season underway.
Rules of the Game
Assembled for our first practice in the sports bubble, the team building begins as it always does.
“Run to the wall and back”, I advise. “It is NOT a race”. Boys, together for the first time, take
off sprinting. It really isn’t a race. It is a small test. Did anyone listen to the part about this
warm up exercise not being a race? Two, perhaps. I send them off again. The running is,
mostly, a trick. One way to hold the attention of second through fifth grade boys is to tire
them out, at least momentarily. I’d be a terrible elementary school teacher. But I might have
the fittest class in the district.
They all return, some huffing and puffing a little more than others.
We all take a seat on the
turf and re-enact the introductory barracks scene from Stripes. That would make me Sgt.
Hulka? I ask each boy to introduce himself, telling us where he goes to school, what grade he is
in, and what his favorite baseball team is. Cubs and Cardinals predominate, with an errant
White Sox or Yankees response or two. No one offers up the name of a football team, so we
are in business.
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The masking tape and Sharpie comes out, and I affix an impromptu name tag to each boy’s tshirt, as I will for the first few practices. The six from last year aren’t a problem, but seven new
names will trip me up for weeks, if experience serves. It is my first season in years without
brothers on the team, which will help. Two years ago, identical twin brothers. I took to calling
each of them both names, just to get it right. This year…lets see, Jack tucks his shirt in, Joseph
doesn’t, that’s a start.
Before they get restless, we go over the rules. There are three. We talk about them at the
first practice. In the past, I’ve committed them to writing. They go something like this:
The first rule is we will have fun. The boys bring such an enthusiasm for the game that, left to our own
devices, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of fun. The second rule is safety related; no one swings a bat except
in the batters box or on-deck circle or when we are going through a team batting drill. We can’t keep
track of more than a dozen boys with bats in their hands.
The third rule is we are going to be ballplayers. Even at their young age, our boys can start to gain a
respect for the game, and the conduct of great ballplayers. The conduct is important, not the refined
skills, which they have years to work on if they choose to.
We will play with dignity during good times. When we hit a home run or win, we’ll not celebrate as if
we never expected to do so. We absolutely won’t taunt the other team like showboating basketball or
football players. We will play with dignity during bad times. When we make an error or lose, we’ll
shake it off, smile and get on to the next play, or next game. We will play with honesty. We won’t
trap a ball and say we caught it, or argue with the ump and say we tipped a last strike when we didn’t.
We will play with (age appropriate) resolve. When one of the boys gets hit with the ball, we’ll look
forward to showing off an excellent bruise. We will play with charity. We’ll cheer for a struggling
opposing player like he is our own. We will play with charm; working on all the wonderful nuances of
the game (we’ll keep spitting to a minimum).
We will play with verve. We’ll hustle out to our
positions (pitchers and catchers exempted) and run the bases with daring and confidence. We’ll play
with ever-increasing knowledge and skill, and likely eat a fair amount of popsicles along the way.
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Most important, we’ll play with an unabashed, unfearful love of the game that I hope they carry with
them the rest of their lives.
Risk & Reward
The phone rings. Not the work cell phone, signaling some mishap, but the phone in the kitchen.
You can tell it is baseball season, because the call is for me. Rich, President of Southeast Little
League, asks if I’d like to take on an extra player. Anyone who has ever coached youth baseball
knows the response. I’ll take questions answered with a question for a thousand, Alex.
Can he pitch?
Rich tells me all he knows is the boy’s name, age and contact information. Gambling ain’t my
thing. No trips to Vegas, no lottery ticket purchases, no season tickets to the Cubs. When
they make it to the World Series, a second mortgage to cover four seats in sections 10 – 15
will suffice.
While I’m not keen on gambling, I am a bit of an optimist. Obviously, then, I say yes. Jake joins
the team. Plus, we really need pitching help, and you never know…
We’ve had a few practices and it appears we’ll be fielding a developing team. We’ll have a few
steady players who have been at it for a few years and several boys new to facing kids trying to
strike them out. The pre-season scouting report for the new members of team Kone is still a
little sketchy, but is coming into focus.
Corey, Chad and Max are moving up from coach pitch last year. Corey takes instruction well,
and is the team inquisitor. He has a question for almost every situation. Chad tells me he got
pegged with a ball once, and prefers to wear a batting helmet with a face mask. That’s fine, I
say. Just hang in there, and take big swings at the ball. As honest as only a seven year old can
be, he tells me baseball isn’t his favorite sport with a smile, but he is looking forward to the
pizza party at the end of the season. Note to self - Chad expects a pizza party. Max is a fun
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loving kid and a good little ballplayer with a discerning eye at the plate and good defensive skills
for his age. His dad, it turns out, owns the sports bubble. That will come in handy, more than
once.
I’m getting Jack and Joseph straight after a few practices. Spritely, quick kids, both have strong
arms for their size and age. They’ll be pressed into service pitching, and will need to work on
their accuracy. They can easily make throws from third to first, but the mound can throw off
youngsters when they first start out. Both are unafraid, free swingers with the bat and pretty
good fielders when the ball comes to them.
Jacob G and Jake appear to be the most experienced of the new players. Jacob G likes to catch
and takes good cuts at the ball. Jake has good skills, a good attitude and will be a fine addition
to the team. I’m glad Rich called.
At an early practice, I ask for volunteers to be catchers. The brave and foolish raise their hands.
Catching gear is cool. That is, until you put it on and sweat through a ninety degree, fifty pitch
inning, trying to stop balls hurled somewhere in the vicinity of the backstop by young pitchers.
The volunteer victims are assembled as the rest of the team, including veteran catchers Colin
and Jacob B, continue with fielding practice.
I tell the catching rookies that the gear they are about to strap on is known as “the tools of
ignorance” in the trade and ask if they still want to continue. A few think I am joking. One
looks like he may be reconsidering. I nip that in the bud by telling them that anyone who says
something like that is just jealous. Catchers are cool. They are the toughest, smartest players
on the team. They have a miserable job, but the admiration of anyone who really knows
baseball. In art, at least, Susan Sarandon chose the catcher over the pitcher. They don’t need
to know that just yet, so I keep the discussion at their level.
Can I rely on you? Can the team rely on you? There will be times when you are our last
chance to stop a run. Will you hang tough? Are you willing to get hit by pitches, foul tips and
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bats? They are starting to grasp the seriousness of the matter as I assist with the myriad of
straps and latches, gearing up for battle as assuredly as any Spartan.
Happiness is a science. At least, that is how Dr. Csíkszentmihályi approaches this desirous state
of being. The good doctor has determined that people are most happy when they are in a state
of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand, when increasing skills are
tested, but not overwhelmed, by challenge.
He calls it “flow”. It is an apt description of
catching, when done well. It is way too early to tell if any of our rookie catchers will achieve
behind the plate nirvana, and I start them off slowly.
Fully geared up, I line each of them up against the wall of the sports bubble and, with all the
ceremony I can muster, use a dart like throwing motion to hit them all squarely (but not too
hard) in the face mask with the ball.
Welcome to the brotherhood of catching. Welcome to the intersection of risk and reward.
Godspeed.
Practice Makes Perfect?
Big mitt…ready…shuffle, shuffle…down.
Big mitt…ready…shuffle, shuffle…down. In Little
League, ground balls are the enemy; guileful, devious and ill mannered.
Steve and I evangelize
four simple steps to deal with the pernicious orbs.
Step 1 Big Mitt – Before the pitcher winds up, push the edge of the web of your mitt down, to
make the mitt bigger and ready to accept the ball.
Step 2 Ready – As the pitcher is winding up, get in a ready position to field the ball, mitt facing
the batter, bent down and forward slightly, moving in, feet spread slightly more than shoulder
width apart.
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Step 3 Shuffle, Shuffle – If the ball is hit to the side of you, shuffle your feet to reach it. Do not
cross your feet unless you have to run to get to the ball.
Step 4 Down – Affirmatively, demonstrably, unfailingly, firmly, resolutely, place your mitt on the
ground. Really, we are not making this last part up. Ground balls are loath to defy Sir Issac
Newton and magically rise to meet your mitt. Your mitt must become one with terra firma.
Enjoy the sound of leather slapping onto earth as sweeter than gift wrap being torn asunder.
The back of your mitt should be dirty. Yes, there will be an inspection.
Please, we beseech you, get your mitt down.
We’ll rehearse this sequence a few hundred times in our practices through the season, in as
many variations as we can contemplate, to, well…mixed results. They are, of course, kids.
Sometimes the ball does the unexpected and it either hurts, gets past you, or both. Sometimes
it does exactly what is expected and still hurts.
We’ll work on the basics for throwing, fielding fly balls, batting and base running. We are
teaching the fundamentals, so we start with how to hold the ball.
We try to make it simple,
but fun. We are not above being goofy. On windy days, we’ll hit tennis balls with a racket
higher in the air than they’ll ever see in a game. If they can catch a tennis ball, blowing around
on a windy day and bouncing out of their mitt, they can catch any baseball. If they miss and get
bonked on the noggin, tennis balls don’t do nearly as much damage as baseballs.
We may be the only team that practices with hula hoops and cast off fruit. The hula hoops
attempt to teach that baseball is a game of movement. Hoops are placed at the starting point
for each position. The ball is put in play and if you are still standing in the hoop when the play
concludes, you get to run to the outfield fence and back. Everyone moves, every play in
baseball. While at the plate, don’t forget to have fun. Your parents, grandparents and several
dozen people you don’t know watching can make for some serious anxiety. So after a healthy
supply of baseballs, we soft toss old oranges, grapefruit and the rare watermelon or two in
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their direction at practice. Even the most timid of batters splatter produce across the infield
with an exuberance you hope they transfer to the next pitcher they face.
In a game where the greatest hitter ever only managed success forty percent of the time, just
once in his career, even the best, most faithfully rehearsed technique is not a guarantee for
perfection. Not that Steve or I expect such. We know there will be times when our most
inexperienced ballplayer will execute the basic techniques and make the play. We’ll enjoy the
moment, for we also know there will be many, many times when “big mitt, ready, shuffle,
shuffle, down” becomes “that’s a nice cloud, THE BALL’S GONNA HIT ME !, what do I do
now?!”
Steve and I are playing a very small part in a very long run. In the long run, it isn’t about
technique. We teach technique hoping it becomes behavior. But that is really just a half step
too. Like all teachers, from parents to pastors to Marine Corps Drill Instructors, we teach
technique as a precursor for behavior, hoping behavior becomes values.
Values matter. The box score? At this level…not so much.
First Game
Clouds are drifting in over Duck Creek park. Davenport is blessed with a healthy collection of
youth ball fields and Duck Creek is a gem. No fancy conveniences, but as beautiful a place to
play ball as you’ve ever seen. One imagines Doubleday and Olmsted surveying the grounds
together. By mutual agreement, we start the game early. Everyone is eager to play, and we
want to get the game in before the rain.
It was a running joke between me and Zach last year that I’d send him out to be team captain
to lead the Little League pledge before the game and he’d refuse. Every other boy would jump
at the chance to be captain, but not Zach. The boys line up to say the pledge and, by rote, I tell
Zach he is captain. This year, he winks as best he can and runs out to the mound. What a
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difference ten months make at his age. Cross off Zach accepting to be captain on the season
“to do” list.
Group O is our first opponent, the first of seven straight games to start the season as visiting
team. Who comes up with these schedules? Group O features two boys from last year’s All
Star team, both good pitchers, one a flame thrower. This will not be easy.
Anyone who thinks baseball is a slow game never coached a base and simultaneously tried to
manage the dugout disorder of fourteen boys at their first game. The questions are relentless.
Can I steal? No, not until halfway through the season. Can I pitch? Noah is pitching. Can I
lead off? Mitch is leading off. Do I have to play? Yes. Which one is left field? Under that tree
over there. Anyone seen my cup? Look around. Can I steal? Not yet. Can I get a drink?
Sure. I didn’t bring a drink. Have mine. Can I steal? Let’s try to get on base and we’ll talk out
here.
The first inning passes without incident. Noah is brilliant on the mound. At bat again in the top
of the second, the inquisition continues. Can we steal yet? I turn for just a second to answer
and Chad gets pegged with the pitch, the first of three of our boys who will pick up a black and
blue souvenir at the plate. All the boys have been tutored that bruises are cool and the
measure of a ballplayer is to trot down to first base unphased by the sharp, sick thud of ball
into flesh.
In extreme cases, I advise, they are allowed an “ouch”, but only if knocked
unconscious. Chad, Corey and Joseph all come through. They take thumpings from pitchers
capable of major league velocity, and only whisper to me when they get to first base that it hurt.
Our hitting isn’t as strong and deep as it needs to be to get kids across the plate. We get boys
on base and run out of steam against good pitching. Noah continues to keep us in the game
with accurate heat through his limit of 40 pitches. Now the fun starts, for both teams and the
fans. Even at the Little League level, the masses do not enjoy pitching duels. Except if you are
the pitcher’s parents.
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Group O scores six in two innings and is leading six to two in the top of the sixth. We load
the bases with our top of the order and give up some outs as the sky darkens. Down to our
last out, Colin steps up to the plate and I tell him what is obvious – we need a hit to get
runners home. If possible, a big hit. The first ball is wide by a few feet. Next, he gets a high
but hittable pitch. He cuts under the ball by a half inch with a swing for the fences. It fouls
straight back, out of play over the backstop. A good cut, but not the fence we had our eye on.
The other pitches are too far out of the strike zone to get a bat on the ball and he garners a
walk. A run crosses the plate and Jacob B comes up as the lead run.
It is dark and hard to see a ball which spent a good portion of the last two hours rolling around
in the dirt. Jacob digs in, and our runners on base know they need to score. It’s the first game,
and despite all the “its not if you win or lose” talk, it’s already a pressure cooker. Elementary
school reputations are hanging in the balance,
The pitcher winds up, Jacob is coiled to unleash an off season of anticipation and … lightning
strikes. That wasn’t a metaphor.
The western sky lights up in the distance and the game is
over. We lost. Little League has strict lightning safety rules, as they should. The ump calls the
game and I get the boys off the field quickly. I tell them in the dugout as they pack up their gear
that we had Group O right where we wanted them, and Jacob was about the blow the game
wide open. I send them off to their parents as the rain starts to fall and tell them to be back on
Saturday at 9:30 sharp for our next game.
Everything is possible when you step up to that plate. Failure, success, and everything in
between, acts of God included. I don’t know how long Jacob will remember that moment,
when everything was riding on him, in the gloam, when he could hardly see the ball. But I’ll
remember it and his unafraid, youthful nerve.
I’m hoping he remembers, for a long time, that he was about to tear the cover off the ball.
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