Little League Legends

I never had a future as a baseball player. I had convinced myself of that as a child, and when I did play any kind of organized ball, I didn’t put in the necessary work to be the very best I could be as a short kid with poor eyesight. If I had, I believe now I could have been a bench player at the varsity level in high school at the very least. Still, not every attempt at playing was a disappointment.

My best experience by far was the Little League team I played for when I was in seventh grade. I was the third baseman (in homage to Phillies legend Mike Schmidt) and the oldest player on my team, which actually made it easier for me to get along with everyone. I wasn’t the best player, but I was certainly in the middle of the pack. That group was full of quirky characters, not the least of whom was our coach, Larry, a short, hot-headed man. Despite his tendency to yell, he was mainly very nice and encouraging. Plus, I never suffered his wrath, which he reserved for his son, Kyle, our team’s catcher, whenever he began crying after striking out.

The only other kid Coach Larry yelled at was Lucky, our enigmatic right fielder. The rest of us on the team avoided him because he didn’t seem to have a whole lot going on upstairs (I later found that was not the case at all). He didn’t pay attention during practice or even during games, as he was more interested in the state of the grass he was standing on. I can still hear Coach Larry yelling at him from the dugout, “Lucky! Stop pickin’ the flowers!” The rest of us tried our best to stifle our laughter during those moments. I think Lucky’s reputation even spread around the league. There was a strict rule against sliding headfirst, but in Lucky’s most triumphant moment of the season, he basically belly-flopped into home, kicking up a cloud of dust that completely enveloped him. Once the fog lifted, the umpire called him safe. Any other player in that situation would’ve been called out for breaking the rules, but it was Lucky.

I actually reconnected with Lucky 15 years later, and he told me that he acted aloof on purpose because his mother had signed him up for baseball against his extreme objections. Adding that context just makes those memories funnier.

Our first baseman, Jeff, was the largest 11-year-old kid I’d ever seen. I also remember him because of his grandmother, who attended every game and yelled in shaky, mousy voice, “Little hit, Jeff, little hit,” every time he came up to bat. Not only was the cheer annoying, but it was ironic because slugger Jeff was the only player on our team to hit the ball over the fence during the season.

We weren’t the best team in our league, but we won more games than we lost, and our absolute best game was toward the end of the season. We fell behind early, 13-3, but we made a furious comeback. I contributed to the surge with a two-run double, but Kyle punctuated it with a pair of inside-the-park grand slams in back-to-back at-bats. I think we were further spurred on after Coach Larry got thrown out by the home plate umpire after arguing vehemently that I checked my swing on a strike-three call. We went into the bottom of the last inning trailing by just one run, 19-18. We were still down a run with the bases loaded and two outs when I stepped to the plate. A sudden pain in my wrist made me skittish about swinging, but luckily, the opposing pitcher was wild, and I drew a walk to tie the game. We then won the game in the craziest way, as the batter behind me, Troy, was struck in the foot for a walk-off hit-by-pitch! I’ll never forget watching that ball curve downward and hit Troy’s left cleat with an anti-climactic thud. He shrugged his shoulders and trotted to first, and then we went crazy after the winning run crossed the plate.

That game and that season remain highlights of my childhood, and my parents and I still mention several classic memories from that team, which, of course, always end in laughter.

note: Simply because I revealed the outcome of every one of my at-bats in that crazy game in my journal back in 1995, I’ll share here that I went 2-for-3 at the plate with a single, a double, two walks, three RBI and a run scored. I didn’t write about any defensive plays in that game, but I can tell you that three days before, I caught a pop up, and then I caught a line drive before doubling off the runner at second all in the same inning. It was the only double play I participated in all season. J