Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Baseball Story

An annual rite of summer, the Little League World Series, is being played out in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, over the next couple weeks. I wrote this story about a 12-year-old boy's experience playing a child's game in a time when nobody heard of steroids or would lie about his age. Oh, yeah, almost forgot -- pubescent girls stood against the fence cheering for the cute boys and did not play.

It's a long one. Without further adieu --

Two to nothing. The giddiness always rose up when he flipped the ball away as he started to race toward the bench after a strike out, all in one motion, fluid he hoped, that ended the inning. He had done it several times in the game already, but it was now the last half of the last inning, their last chance; and he didn't like their chances.

He tossed the heavy wire mask and his McGregor glove in the corner of the fenced-in bench. He sat alone on the scarred, wooden plank, unlatching the chest protector and throwing it off over his head into the corner, then bending over and unhitching the dirty, off-white elastic straps of the molded-plastic, blue shin guards. His teammates crowded together, standing, faces against the steel chain link fence, dirty fingers grasping the criss-crossed, twisted wire, polished and burnished in the last four months by 11- and 12-year-old hands. The end of the season, the annual invitational all-star tournament, had arrived. That's what the round patch on the shoulder of this jersey said -- GHLBBL All-Star Tournament -- the man who ordered the patches forgot to get the year sewn on the patches. The patch from the year before had been fancier, looking like a baseball, tiny red V's stitched in half moon shapes on the round patch, the year embroidered in the center with blue thread. Red, white, and blue.

The players on the other team were all six-footers, it seemed, except for the lefty on the mound. Blonde hair sticking out from under his askew baseball cap with a huge white "E" above the bill, the pitcher was a lot shorter than the others, and somewhat wider, but he was throwing harder than any GHLBBL pitcher. The ball popped, appearing in the catcher's mitt each warm-up pitch as if the lanky catcher were a magician. The catcher, much taller than the southpaw on the mound, had smashed a pitched ball far over the center field fence into the darkness not 15 minutes earlier, following home a teammate, to plate the only two runs of a hitherto scoreless pitchers' duel.

The boy sitting on the bench knew he should have signaled for a curve ball to his towering opponent, who now crouched behind home plate. The boy gazed intently at the right knee of his baseball pants, caked in dark brown mud. He scratched at the mud with his right index finger, wondering if he might reach the batter's box once more. He was in the hole, due to hit fourth. "Hit" was a misnomer, since the smallish opposing pitcher had not yet yielded a hit -- a no-hitter -- and everyone on the team had been out on strikes at least once, he among them, except he had walked in his first time at bat, when there was some hope of winning.

The crowd groaned collectively, and he didn't have to look up to know that his teammate went down on strikes for out number one. He heard cheering from the other team's fans, but the groan was louder. His teammates clinging to the fence, implored Ralph, only they called him Reggie, to get things started. They blocked his view of the field.

Ralph had walked his last time up and had come to the pitcher's mound after the big home run in the top half of the inning to categorically state to his dejected teammate they would pull it out. Ralph knew that just like he knew the young guy the Kansas City Athletics brought up named Reggie Jackson was going to be great. A shrill voice belonging to Ralph's mom screamed,"Come on, Reggie!" above the rest of the buzzing crowd, which was standing six deep behind him shaking the fence, urging on their hometown all-star team.

A roar went up from the crowd, and the boy leapt to his feet and onto the bench for a better view over the heads of his teammates, who were jumping up and down as one, yelling "Go two, go two!" trying to will Ralph, aka Reggie, to second base; but the first base coach held his arms up to stop Ralph's progress. Ralph's feet nearly slipped out from under him, but he regained his balance and retreated to the safety of the first base bag as the leftfielder tossed the ball to the second baseman, who was standing astride his base.

The crowd came to life, not realizing some luck happened and the ball dribbled between the shortstop and the diving third baseman, barely reaching the outfield, but it was a hit nonetheless; and Reggie/Ralph was standing on first base clapping his hands.

The boy grabbed his bat from where it hung from one of the holes in the fence and started to the on-deck area, looked up, and was surprised to see Skip stepping into the batter's box, pinch-hitting for Kenny. He wasn't surprised to see a pinch hitter since Kenny had gone down with the bat never leaving his shoulder on three straight pitches each time up. The noise from the crowd was getting louder and louder, imploring the diminutive Skipper, who had thrown a no-hitter earlier in the week against a weaker team, to get a hit. Skip never took the bat off his shoulder, but unlike Kenny, the four pitches he saw were not even close to home plate. The crowd was so loud. individual screams of delight were drowned out. The public address announcer's mouth moved as he looked up into the booth above the scores of people crushing into the fence behind home plate, but the old, white-haired fixture in the booth for as long as he could remember couldn't be heard above the raucous partisans.

The manager of the other team of all-stars stood next to his pitcher, both looking up at the lanky catcher, who stood with them. The manager was yelling something and pointing right at the boy, as he stood in the right-handed batter's box. He looked past the gesticulating manager toward the centerfield fence and saw hundreds of faces framed by the darkness beyond. Ralph/Reggie clapped his hands, yelling, left foot touching second base. He looked down to the third base coach, who might give him the bunt sign, but didn't. Instead, the rotund coach clapped his hands together and then pointed to left field. The other catcher, grim-faced, trotted toward him, pulling the wire catcher's mask on.

The lefty had just thrown four balls to the Skipper that weren't even close to the intended target. He shouldn't swing at the first pitch and make the pitcher throw a strike to him, he thought; but then he thought that the manager of the other team probably told the little lefthander to fire the pill right down the middle. He had been at enough of those conferences on the pitcher's mound to know the pitcher was ordered to throw a strike. He decided to swing if a fastball came down the middle just as the pitcher swung his arms up overhead.

He swung at the swift blur the lefty delivered and the ball shot over the first baseman's head. A white chalk dust cloud kick up as he closed in on first base -- fair ball -- hit the bag, and dug hard for second. He looked to the big coach at third base, noticing that the guy's hairy stomach was sticking out from beneath his GHLBBL All-Star t-shirt, as the coach wildly wound his right arm around and around and around like a windmill; and he jammed his left foot into second base and raced toward third base, pumping his arms, then leaping, left foot aimed at the white pillow of a base ahead, right leg folded beneath him. He hit the base with his left and pushed with the right, popping up to a standstill, both feet safely on third. He had practiced that slide, along with some others, for hours in the backyard.

It was then that he heard the screaming sea of people, and saw it moving, back and forth, up and down, smiling, waving. His teammates, barely restrained by the fenced bench area, were incoherent, faces contorted in screaming smiles. Ralph/Reggie and Skip were jumping, hugging each other, bouncing up and down, near home plate, both having crossed home plate safely. The third base coach whacked the boy on the rear end, as baseball coaches tend to do when the game is tied and the winning run is standing on third with only one out, the over-flowing crowd delirious. He beamed broadly, allowing the crowd's energy to wash over him, having turned a hopeless mid-summer evening into a jubilant one.

He took a deep breath and scanned the crowd, but didn't see his parents or grandparents, who came to watch the game, among the many faces there. He had never seen a crowd this large, except at the Friday night high school football game he snuck into last year. That had been a disaster with the seat of his pants ripped out by the eight-foot-high fence he and his friends had tried to negotiated.

There was no need to look to the third base coach for any signs because Eddie, the league's best ballplayer, never looked for signs. Right foot braced against third base, the boy fixed his gaze at the number 14 on Eddie's back, ready to race toward home plate, and could see the pitcher rocking into his wind-up out of the corner of his eye.

Eddie swung and missed at the first offering, and the tall catcher sprang from his couch, threatening to throw to third; but the boy leapt back to the base, obeying the screams and shouts of most of the fans lining the fences around the baseball field and standing in the grandstand along the first and third base sides of the field. Coiled at the ready on third base, he watched Eddie step into the batter's box and the umpire settling in behind the crouching catcher, morphing into a two-headed creature.

The local newspaper reported that Eddie hit a curve ball. The boy couldn't remember what kind of pitch was thrown, just that he started to run when he thought the ball was nearing its target and Eddie was swinging.

Eddie didn't hit it solid -- a bouncer that passed him as he raced toward home; and he knew the third sacker would glove it and fire it to the long-armed catcher, who had tossed off his mask and was waiting for the throw, catcher's mitt outstretched toward the third base side.

He saw that the catcher remained anchored behind home plate instead of moving out to block the plate. It would be difficult for the fielder to throw accurately with him racing in on the catcher. The throw would go behind him; he'd slide to the infield side of the plate, a hook slide away from the catcher, left leg tucked a little and right leg dragging as his upper body leaned toward pitcher's mound, making the tag of home with his right foot.

He slid, just as he had done a thousand times in the backyard, wearing out the grass and the only pair of Lee jeans that fit him. The umpire's arms were apart, palms down, an upside-down "V."

Safe.

Posted by Bill at August 21, 2007 09:48 PM