Defenders--game 4, ppd.

Fresh off our 'devirginizing' (Kenny's term, not mine) of the Sunset Park squad, our team was feeling a groove and everyone was in a positive mode, almost everyone. Joel was a bit pissed about not getting into the victory and did not seem to take well my translated apology and was unimpressed by my pointing to the scorebook to prove that he was coming in the next inning before the ump time-limited the game. I am starting to sense a bit of selective hearing on his part, he seemingly never needs a translation for "You're up next." or "Get out to rightfield." Coach Chris reports that Joel seems to have grasped two other phrases that he utters while pitching. "Oh my God!" (last word sounds more like 'gaw') and "Shit!". Joel and I halted our bi-lingual experiment after we both learned that when I was saying, "Get my glove.", to him in what I thought was perfect spanish, I was instead yelling, and gesturing, "I'm a glove, I'm a glove!" As Sonia informed me of my error in linguistics (only, of course, after she stopped laughing), Joel and I exchanged a real quick look and have come to a certain understanding about not understanding. Sonia is having more fun translating than she thought she would.

We had a practice scheduled for Monday at 4:30 and coach quickly realized after calling the practice that he had a professional obligation (no, really, I did) that had me tied up until 5:30. I had 3 choices, call everyone and cancel practice. Call everyone and delay practice or, entrust my team leaders to carry out practice for an hour until I could arrive. I felt pretty confident in the crew and decided to go with the egalitarianist approach and entrust the kids to run their own practice. Now before you all think this failed miserably, I took steps to ensure it would work. I only left gloves and baseballs--no bats. I left a list of 6 items for them to work on, I met with Anthony and Jeremy the day before and talked with them about what I expected. I spoke with Kenny on the phone for 10 minutes on the subject. I dropped the stuff at the field at 4:00 that afternoon, 10 players were already there and I told them all (wouldn't you know the one day we coulda had a full-squad workout...) to hold the fort until I returned. The first set of calls started coming in about 5:00, from Kenny, reporting that John stormed off the field and left 'for some reason' and that I needed to get over there to deal with it. I wrapped up my speaking engagement as quickly as possible and returned to the field to see Kenny and Anthony puffing their chests at each other, Ralph missing along with 4 others. Josh was fielding grounders and Taylor and Tytee were trying to intervene in the mini-man thing going on. Taylor told Tytee, emphatically, "Boys are so stupid.", and ol' coach could only smile. From all sides of the account, two major incidents occurred, both batting related. John swung during bunting practice (not on the list of 6) and pissed Anthony off, and Kenny, refusing to give the bat up during grounder practice (not on the list of 6) pissed Christian off. Kenny and Anthony both accused each other of thinking they were superstars. Suoerstaritis is what I call it. I had to call the team together and ask them how many of the 6 items on the list did they do? Answer: none. Second question: Why did you think I did not leave a bat with you guys? Answer: Idunno We then called it a day after a short while and the next day we had amnesty day. Not wanting to admit the abject failure of egalitarian practice, I informed the kids of the concept of amnesty. I then told them they were all granted amnesty for any crimes, real or imagined that may or may not have occurred at practice the previous day. Everyone accepted it and I also may have reminded them in the amnesty speech of who their ruler is in their baseball universe. One good story that came out of the rouge practice was that 5 minutes before I got there, some pasty-legged looking guy in a brown shirt (go figure) tried kicking the kids off the field by asking for our permit. Seeing the coach in action for many years on this issue, the kids pounced on him (figuratively, not literally) with a demand to see his permit. The sap never came back over and stayed with his portly softball chukkers. The kids may have turned on each other, but they defended their right to have a field to do it on.

The amnesty practice was quite good and we really worked on baserunning and sliding. Taylor can never slide well in practice, but in games, she is fantastic, so I don't really give her much grief about the sloppy practice slides. During our last drill, the trusty old stopwatch stopped stopping. We wore the button out. It lasted slightly longer than 4 years and was a sure-fire way to get the kid's attention. Leo, a former Defender and current Bonnie (the Bonnies are an elite baseball traveling team in the Brooklyn area) was actually manning the watch when it expired.

The rains wiped out the end of the week practice. We called the games on Friday during the 2 inch rainstorm. Anthony called me at 9:40 pm to tell me that Irving (a Southern Trucking player) said James (the Commish) was called by Pete (uber-Commish) and told that the fields were getting worked on and the kids can play on Saturday. Impressed with this story, I called James and asked him if any of the above were true. We quickly concluded that only the Irving talking to Anthony part actually occurred. Saturday was a gorgeous day, perfect for ball to be played. Commish called early, with trepidation in his voice about the actual field conditions. I promised I would tell him the truth and save him the 20 mile drive to our urban field of dreams.
Here is the complete truth now commish: the fields were spongy, lakes in some spots and water near the dugout. If you play a real game in these conditions, the first 4 pitches would go in the water or mud--play a scrimmage, you get 1 the entire game--just the baseball gods way of being funny. However, at the field, two squads were organizing a scrimmage by 8:30 am, the minor leagues were playing on a field where the lakes were beyond their ability to reach and there were about 20 other kids. Taylor and Tytee were there at 8:10 (I had told them 9:00) so I told them they were absolved from being an hour late the week before. It was a pleasant day to hang at the field but the games would have been a murky, muddy mess. Make-up dates to be announced.

And finally, for all of those concerned fans, the defendermobile is as good as every and just had a few parts of plastic fall from the grill area. I will post a pic soon. I will add that a far greater number of fans expressed concern for the condition of the car from its injury at practice compared to when I described the severe injuries suffered by both myself and coach Chris at other practices. A far greater number.

As always, updates to follow...