With Spring just around the corner, many people are getting excited about the upcoming baseball season. I enjoy watching an occasional game, mostly because it just seems to make it feel like Summer, but I am not overly passionate about it. When I was a kid, I loved to play baseball. My brothers and I would spend hours after school and entire days in the Summer just practicing and playing in pick up games. We had a fairly large contingent of similarly aged youths in our immediate area and could field two complete teams on a regular basis.
We played Little League baseball as well. I remember much about those days, not all the memories are fond ones. I got my first glove when I was six and my dad had signed my older brother and I up for pee wee baseball. The smell of that leather was so unique and when we oiled the glove up it smelled even better. Whenever you got a new glove, you had to put linseed oil on it and tie it up with a baseball to get just the right shape. I have no idea how we knew what just the right shape was, but apparently we did.
The night before the first try outs, my dad came home from work and took my brother and I into the back yard to practice throwing and catching. It was a real “Leave It To Beaver” moment. It went fairly well, we caught some and dropped some. My brother was quite a natural athlete and took to almost any sport immediately. I also possessed fairly good innate athletic ability, but not as quick to excel as my brother. As I was saying, we caught some and dropped some and continued for a while as dusk began to fall. It was getting a little dark and harder to see. Next thing, my dad throws the ball and it sails over my extended glove and smacks me right in the mouth. At that point, I was done with the fine sport of baseball. I started to cry(it hurt like heck), threw down my glove and went into the house. The last thing I remembered was my Mom chastising my Dad for playing catch in the dark. Other than that one time, my Mom was not the type to play the, “you hurt my baby” routine.
Well, I got over my pain and still went to try outs. It was not the last time that a baseball would hit me in the mouth, the arm, stomach, leg or just about any other body part. That little white leather encased ball jumped around a lot!
Once, when I was ten and playing second base for my team, The Braves, I went to field a ground ball that took a nasty hop and nailed me in the mouth again. Now, this would be an awesome story if I described how I snatched the ball from the ground, spit out my bloody tooth while throwing the runner out at first base. Its actually still a pretty good story. I did gather my composure and pick the ball up to throw the runner out at first base. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but begin to cry(remember, it hurt like heck). I don’t really know if it was the pain or the embarrassment that I did not field the ball cleanly. Probably a little of both.
At that point, something nice happened. Not only did my coach come to check on me, but the coach of the opposing team came out, as well. I waved them off and told them I was fine. It was my first “rub some dirt on it” and get back to the game moment. I thought the other coach displayed real sportsmanship, showing concern like that. Many of you must be thinking,” well, of course the other coach would be concerned, you were just a bunch of little kids”. You would think that wouldn’t you? That was not always the case.
This movie could have easilybeen a biopic for many a youth
Take a look at this movie poster. If you’ve never seen the “Bad News Bears”, it might be hard for you to understand the rest of my post. I highly recommend this film. It was quite funny, rude and charming all at the same time. It was basically about a little league baseball team comprised of all the rejects that couldn’t make the other teams. It was full of overly competitive, petty adults and mean spirited teens that would do anything to win a baseball game. One would have assumed, as with most Hollywood films, that great liberties were taken and that it was quite an exaggeration of reality. Nope.
If anything, it undersold how bad the behavior of coaches and parents could be at children’s athletic events. I have seen grown men coach their teams on how to cheat. Some of these adults would often intimidate teen aged umpires, just to get the calls to go their way. I saw one coach whose son was pitching for a team we were playing berate him to the point of driving him from the mound in tears. I could go on, but why bother. It’s Spring. The sun will be shining. Play Ball!