Defenders--week 3

We are a mere 36 hours (as of this writing) from the start of our season and we do not even know who we are playing yet. The Von King (frozen dinner team) squad backed out of playing in our league today. We may have a replacement team, we will know tomorrow, or each saturday will have one team playing a doubleheader. Such are the travails of having an independent league.

We are busy trying to finalize our squad as the no-shows, sister tormenters and lazy students make rosters a week-to-week adventure. Quincy has disappeared and his phone is not working, Christian served a suspension for maltreatment of his sister (who, by the way, has a cannon of an arm and may end up plunking him if they face each other during the season) and I fielded a call today informing me of Kenny's (who else?) lackidasical attitude towards his studies. I tell the kids before the season that we are all a family and that we must respect each other and support each other and that if any coach hears of bad behavior in school or home, suspensions, benchings and dropping in the batting order will occur. I call this my "when worlds collide" speech.

A few kids were missing from practice last week and two boys watching asked (through anthony) if they could practice with us. Neither spoke english and both were tight-lipped when I asked which team they played on. Needing able-bodies to field during bp (batting practice) I let them play and told them they would have to move around the field since my kids took precedence. We proceded to have bp with me as the pitcher. By the second batter, I noticed our two fill-ins were both near shortstop and were trying to hide what I thought was laughing. After a couple more pitches the same thing occurred. I was pretty certain they were laughing at me, but wasn't sure since they were laughing in spanish. It may have been my tired-ass 3 year old sneakers I had on, could have been my Pirate hat or perhaps it was my pitching motion as I wound up to throw my deceptor pitch. I motioned for the ring-leader to bat and exacted the same justice I do when k ids act-up, goof off or I am just bored--I plunked him right between the numbers. He looked at me with shock and I just smiled. Well maybe they were or maybe they weren't laughing at me but it sure stopped after my 'message pitch'.

Uniform day came and the squad was horrified by our new unis (uniforms). After seven years of blue on gray we were given yellow on forest green. Tytee was distraught that nothing she had would match, Josh was upset that he had just bought two blue batting gloves (the kids do not believe me when I tell them they never had batting gloves when I played little league) and Clayvon, entering his 4th year with the squad, had a look of his world just not making sense anymore. To offset our despair of wrongly-colored unis, our scant squad of 10 had an infusion of two new players, 10 and 11 year old brothers from PR (Puerto Rico). The youngest speaks no english and the older one thinks he understands more english than he actually does. They can both field well, have a lot of spirit and the 10 year-old, a lefty, has a rocket for an arm. I had to yell at him (and then ask Anthony or John to interpret) to quit catching the ball with his hand and to use his glove instead. And in keeping with the irony can be ironic theorem, an errant ball was thrown in to me as I was hitting to the outfielders and as I tried to catch the ball with my hand it struck my left ring-finger real hard. I uttered a word fairly loud that can also mean to procreate. I looked up and Jeremy, who was shagging the throws for me, had a sly little smile on his face. We have a general rule of mo cursing on our team and is punishable by push-ups, however we have exceptions for extraordinary circumstances. For example, when Cucarocha, a little skinny 61 pound kid on our first squad got plunked by a fastball once he shouted out "ahh, f*%*!" and we let it go as a legitimate and earned curse. So, as i looked at Jeremy, I shot a pleading look to him hoping he wouldn't bust on me to the rest of the team. He just slyly smiled and as he turned to catch a ball said deadpanned, "don't catch the ball with your hand, coach." The ensuing 20 seconds of silence was very satisfying on all both our parts.

Our last practice was fairly productive even with us getting kicked off the field (damn permit holders) and moving to a more hard-scrabble field the local football team uses for practice next to a factory. I discovered big silent John can whack the crap out of a ball, Tytee and Taylor are our two fastest players after Jeremy. I took a couple of swings (mostly half swings aiming the ball at certain players) and decided to take a full swing when I saw about 100 pigeons eating the freshly-seeded portion of right-center field. Well, in that one pitch I had the mixed emotions of joy and despair between my swing and the ball hitting the ground. I was filled with joy knowing I could still hit a 13 year-old fastball, but was despondent over reallizing that the flying shit-bags known as pigeons can judge a fly ball better than any of my outfielders. I hit that ball right at them and they all flew off when that ball was still 20 feet in the air from hitting them& nbsp; I must admit I was pretty impressed. Practice ended after we lost a few balls over the left field fence where the razor-wired encased factorry sits. I told the team we had to go since I lost my good balls which immediately brought laughter. FYI, any mention of things like "where are my balls?" "are those my balls?"
or "Who has some balls?" will ellicit hearty laughter from 13 year-old kids, especially boys. And to prove my point, all the guys reading this right now are laughing their ass-off and all the women are thinking "guys are so stupid."

Not sure what to expect for our opener, we know Anthony will pitch, Kenny will catch and Jeremy will be at first. The rest is a crap-shoot for now. But as always, it will all reveal itself soon. I am just real proud that none of my squad owns a plastic glove and next week we will have glove day and the inevitable "Are you Puerto Rican or Dominican?" debate will surely follow (more on both these topics later). Opening ceremonies are set for 9:00 am and we will play sometime thereafter. As always, updates to follow.