I have vague memories of what people lacking small children do on Saturdays. Hazy visions of sleeping past eight, skipping breakfast and meandering through downtown festivals sounds about right.
None of that happens in my world.
We get up early, cook a big meal and head to the ball field three seasons out of the year. You see, we’ve been blessed with a boy who’s obsessed with baseball. My little guy loves everything about the game. He’ll play any position with gusto, thinks practice is fun, cuts up in the dugout when he’s benched for an inning and lives to attend the Round Rock Express games on Little League Night. Parading around that glorious stadium of minor league big men ranks near the sublime pinnacle of joy on his small boy calendar.
This Fall was his first season of kid pitch. God, those are some long games. Three slow innings are the gold standard in an excruciating ninety minutes of boring play. If you’re unfamiliar with the phases of little league, I’ll give you a short primer: for the previous four to six seasons these players are pitched to by one of their coaches, a nice man who’s throwing to make hitting as easy as possible. Prior to that, they’re hitting off a stationary T stand. Kid pitch is a whole new world. Accuracy and base theft are cornerstones for this new level of the game, thankfully most excel at the latter so the scoreboard isn’t a total heartbreak when the ump calls time.
Boys of eight can’t pitch with any sort of precision, the batters are busy ducking or swinging at air. Most kids get walked to first or painfully run for the base after getting beaned by the wild man standing the mound, then they steal the hell out of the remaining bases. Half of the scores are generated by some ballsy scrap of a kid racing for home after the catcher goes scrambling to recover a bad pitch.
Today was our last regular season game and my boy pitched a few innings. This child was in his glory, striking out half of his batters while walking the rest. Nobody got smacked, none of his throws went wild and the coach gave him a huge Atta Boy as he left the field. After a successful stint at first and third, the coveted Game Ball was stowed in his equipment bag for the ride home. Not a bad day at the ball field.
He’s busy carving a ten foot spear as I write.
What an excellently described post about the quintessential American sport and kid pitch Little League. Boy does it bring up the strong feelings and a million stories. I actually coached one season. I’ve been living what you describe the last few years, times two. The older son had a shrine to Babe Ruth when we lived in Germany. I have a great deal of respect for the kids who pitch.
That’s so cool WW, I expect everyone in my real backyard to get this, it’s so nice to find someone here who understands and appreciates the game.
My jaw actually dropped when I read that you coached a team. That’s beyond rare. Major props for taking the lead, you have my utmost respect. I expect running the coaching staff and parents was more difficult than actually coaching the kids.
It’s a great game, no?
When your boy gets to the 11 and 12 year old leagues you will see things happening that will be remembered by 12 boys on each side for the rest of their lives. At 13, the bigger field and talent will reduce participation. It is a really hard game.
But it is the only one where a 160 pound man may beat a 290 pound man, slow can find a place on the same field with fast, intelligence has its uses but stupidity will not hold you back, and the mystery of where hitters come from has never been solved.
The pool is already being diminished at this young age, James.
Baseball isn’t a kid’s pick up game anymore.
Young Fall ball has already become a game for the most dedicated. Sumer All Star play refines it even further. Unless my boy loses interest in the next few years, I fully expect him to rise to the cream of young teenage players, he’s pretty damn good. Better than good, he doesn’t mind working hard to improve – all self motivated. He has one of those natures.
As long as he’s enjoying the play, I’ll show up.
He’s going to be long and lean like his daddy. A six foot, solid piece of pure brilliance.
Boys are a such a mini-cosmos of how the world works for reals.
It’s only because of my boys that I ever got involved with baseball, but once again I am grateful to them for enriching my life. (I coached the same season I got certified as a personal trainer. Anyone who knows me, knows how completely out of character any of that is for me. I was voted most likely to be a spinster librarian, with bun and glasses, growing up. :D)
The best thing I learned from baseball is that “it ain’t over until it’s over,” baby!
I’m sure I echo a lot of coaches when I say that the parents were the worst thing I had to deal with. One was a dweeb Major, who came to every practice to watch, but never bothered to offer me any help, and saw fit to stand on the sidelines and critique.
I second what Joah or Argghh! says about boys and mini-cosmos.
I’m sorry I forgot to answer, “It’s a great game!”
It’s sportsmanship, kindnesss, cleverness, skill, gentlemanliness, comraderie, and American moxie (think Bugs Bunny) all rolled into one game. I can’t say enough good things about it.
ps. Sorry to keep putting on these add-on, but I just remembered something that kind of reminds me of your neighbor watering the plastic flowers story.
The year before we left Germany, my boys and I were playing catch out on the street, because we had no yard. We lived on the German economy, so baseball was not a known sport, but Herr R. and his two daughters came out and joined us and learned how to catch with baseball gloves.
Herr R. was my age and the next year just before we got ready to pack up and move, he died of a heart attack. What I’ll always remember best of Herr R. is of him and his girls laughing and playing catch with us.
Loved Little League even though I didn’t have many Hall of Fame Days.
And to this day I’d rather face Nolan Ryan in his prime than another middle school pitcher who has the aim of Ray Charles. I recall crying unmanly tears once when I got hit on the helmut (and was unharmed) out of simple relief the at bat was over.
To this day I consider one of my greatest accomplishments in life was two back to back catches made against the best team in the league (who we beat) while I was patrolling the green fields of Siberia otherwise known as Right Field.
Enjoy Young Man and Proud Mom!
My Grandpa Charlie Londe—he who dressed like (or as) Kojak—and was part of “The Family Business” in St. Louis….
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/family_epics/louis/4.html
….taught me to play baseball.
I was good, for a 12 year old.
But Gramps thought I was a pro or something, and so he signed me up in an advanced league, as pitcher.
“Gramps, I can’t do this. These guys are older and better than me.”
“Yes, you can, Lance.”
“But I’ll make afool or myself.”
“Anybody laughs at you, Lance, they’ll end up in a dumpster.”
“Oh, okay.”
Well, I sucked like a Hoover.
I believe my first pitch went into the stands and beaned a future data, Barbara Osheroff, whose hairspray (Helene Curtis) is still my favorite fragrance.
[Simple Pavlovian conditioning. We were dancing at her Bat Mitvah and I was overcome with her budding 13 year old female goddessness at the same time I smelled the Helene Curtis. Click!]
I said, “Gee you hair smells nice, Barbara.”
She said, “It’s hairspray, imbecile.”
I dropped out of the league.
I have never fully recovered. Some day, perhaps, I will be able to look in the mirror and say,
“Lance, consider what happened to all those guys who laughed.”
Clearly Lance de Boyle is a football name. Wide receiver.
We had a pitcher on my boy’s 12-year-old all-star team who was so fast we had no one to catch him. The coach of the World Series winner Long Beach (former big-leaguer Toby Harrah) , who beat us in the regionals because of that little problem, said he was the best little league pitcher he ever saw. He terrorized hundreds of kids who are no doubt still talking about that experience.
I was the best pitcher in my age group for years, and had my way with hitters. Then the day came a left-hander threw a ball by us that made noise and caused paralysis. That was my first look at an above average big-league fastball, and I went into music. I regret now not manning up.
James, from our conversations, I’d say you manned up just fine in the long run, my friend.
Well, I was fifteen. I got back into the game at forty in a competitive amateur league, learned to hit at a high level, lost my fear of getting drilled after two divorces, and had two hits against a major-league pitcher who was between Oakland and Atlanta that season.
In baseball or fine women it’s not how long you play, but how you rate your at bats, I tell myself of necessity.