Defenders-Games 2 & 3

Well, before I get into game action I have to share the drama of what happened at our only practice last week. Due to torrential and record setting rains, our only day of practice was Friday. The fields were clear, Coach Chris and Coach Lou were able to be there and it had all the earmarks of a productive practice session. I parked the defendermobile loaded up the kids with the equipment bags and bases and squatted on field #7 awaiting the gilsports kids to leave. They are city school kids who have the fields til 5 pm and the chubby softball studs don't kick us off til 6, so much like the Oklahoma boomer rush of the 1850's, various groups, teams and other interlopers all try to squeeze some practice in during the scant open time available. I have schmoozed the leader of gilsports (his name, appropriately enough, is Gil) for the past couple of seasons and he alerts me to which field he is leaving first so we can take over. In mid-schmooze on Friday I noticed all the kids rushing out to my car and surrounding some guy driving an SUV. I had parked right past the bus stop, so no one could park behind me, and there was about 80 feet (an eternity by nyc standards) of empty space between my front and the next car. I hear the kids yelling, "Coach, some guy just hit your car." Not believing it could be so, I ambled over and sure enough, SUV idiot driver had to back up so friggin' close to me he smashed the grill of my car. Kenny offered to hit the SUV with a bat and Anthony wanted to know why the guy had to park so close. The driver, looking a little whacked out and muttering about not being able to see behind him asked what I wanted to do. After ascertaining that he was about 6' 6" and inebriated to some degree, I made sure my hood opened and told him to forget about it as I wanted to quell the kids anger at the desecration of our legendary vehicle. We proceeded to practice and had a good series of drills, especially our running from 3rd to home on passed balls. This drill entails timing the length of time it takes a pitcher to run in from the mound and the catcher tossing him the ball to the plate. We then time the kids running from 3rd to home with a slide and the purpose is to give them scientific proof that they are all faster running than the battery mates are at correcting their errors. I had to leave practice early and left said car so the remaining coaches could put the equipment away. Coach Chris got the honor of bringing the car back to me.

Our first game on Saturday was against our arch-rival Southern Trucking. Before the game, we embarrassed the commish by having both teams crowd around home plate and asking him to come in to settle something. Looking annoyed (and glancing at me) he had a look of "this better not be about baling wire." Both teams then proceeded to sing him happy birthday as we had a solitary candle in a little piece of cake. Our team seemed ready for the game, although all the coaches were apprehensive about pitching Christian since he had been consistently missing the strike zone in practice. Our league only allows a pitcher to pitch every other game, so our stud hurler Anthony would have to play ss. We were home and true to form, Christian walked the first batter. The next guy up hit a grounder to Kevin, playing second base, and he flipped it to Anthony and he promptly let the ball glance off his glove. He then started yelling at Kevin. To say this was a portent of things to come doesn't really do the word portent justice. 2 more walks, 3 more errors and a couple of timely hits had us down 6 before we even put a helmet on our first batter. Kenny got on by an error and stole second, third and home (if we are on the bases, it is a steal, if the other team is on them, it is a passed ball) and it appeared not only did our baserunning drill pay off, but we already had a run and the second batter was up. But, alas, that was our only highlight of the next two innings. Meanwhile, our arch rivals not only put a 3 spot up on the second inning, they got testy with us and would not let us insert a 10th batter (Taylor) who had shown up late. Yes, it is against the technical rules, but custom is if we haven't gone through the order, we generally allow it under the 'get the kids engaged in play' theory. The top of the third had them lead off with Irving, although Abraham had been in that spot previously. After reaching on an error, I called time, approached the ump and said they were batting out of order. The coach blew a gasket and all of a sudden was not into playing by technical rules such as announcing substitutes. We prevailed and it, unfortunately was our highlight of the game. We had a brief surge and scored two in the bottom of the third but we began the fourth with a fly to center that should have been caught by John (the first time all year we actually had a player move towards a fly ball in the appropriate direction) but Josh collided with him and it was either a home run or 4-base error depending on which dugout was scoring the play. 7 runs later we got them out and were promptly shut down for a humiliating 16-3 mercy-rule loss. To make matters worse, our 2 defectors, Noel D. and Noel G. were on base all 6 times they batted and scored 5 times between them. And Noel D., using the pitching style we taught him last year pretty much dominated us. We were gracious in defeat (under threats of punishments and benchings) and had to quickly prepare to play Sunset Park, the returning champs who had not lost at all last year and won their first game this year. We snacked on granola bars and gatorade that had been provided by Coach Chris.

The team was late arriving and the ump told us by rule, we could accept a forfeit. I asked our team if they wanted a whimpy-ass win or did they want to go out and earn a win. A resounding vote of no whimpy-ass wins pleased all the coaches and we set out to play the champs with our stud on the mound. Game two started much the same as we went 1-2-3 and they scored 4 runs within the first 5 batters. Our season seemed to be imploding right before our eyes when Kenny called time and told me I had to come to the mound. He gave the team a pep talk and I was proud of the boy for his leadership. The next pitch was a wild pitch, and Kenny, who had 3 times in the first game tried to run the ball back to the plate on such occasions, ran after the ball and threw a beautiful toss right to the plate and as the ball was in its perfect arch hurtling towards the dish it dropped right and the plate and made a thud sound that reverberated throughout the field. Kenny, it seems, was the only one who did not realize there was no one on base at the time. He started laughing, Anthony started laughing and the whole team just lightened up at that moment. From that point on, only one batter reached base and we scratched out a couple of runs here a couple of runs there and we survived 3 horrible, horrible calls from the same ump who vexed us last week. The commish and two coaches, watching from the left field bleachers (o.k. it was really the commish in his lounge chair and two guys standing by him) couldn't believe the calls. One of them was a steal of home (remember, we were on offense) and the catcher tagged the runner with his glove as he held the ball up high with his throwing hand. The ump also missed two other plays on the bases and missed a beautiful throw to third by Kenny that nailed a runner trying to steal. We took the lead in the last inning and Taylor had two great slides at third and home to give us a 6-4 lead. They were up for their last at bats. First batter whiffed, followed by a walk. Then the next batter hit a ball in the hole between first and second and I saw our game falling apart. However Kevin, with his three foot glove dove, did a tumblesault and all you could see was a cloud of dust and a glove with a small white orb slowly being tossed to Jeremy for the second out. Runner on third and a batter coming up who I had approved as a late entry in the number 10 spot. The kid looked good and dug in with a nice stance. I thought my nice guy move would cost us but a weak grounder to the pitcher sealed the victory and our squad had the first W of the year. Kenny proudly declared in the dugout "we devirginized them coach." and although I was going to tell him not to use such terms, I was really just secretly glad that he didn't say we had popped their cherry.

I tried to convince the team that our reward for a win is push-ups, but after being shot a look by Tytee (I feel sorry for whoever she ends up with if he ever gets that look) I capitulated and agreed that we had to go and have our celebratory pizza. We loaded up the car, Coach Chris said he could fit two in his vehicle, but we got 5 in there and as I drove over to our spot, a couple of kids were complaining about how tight it was in the car and Kenny kept saying we were like the clown car at the circus. As we got out of the car I realized why they complained, I had 7 kids, including the 3 tallest ones, two bat bags and me in the car--a new defendermobile record. We all signed the game ball and gave it to Kenny to give to his granddad who had been hospitalized with a stroke. Victor had not missed a game in 4 years and the kids all were in agreement to give him the ball. Kenny later reported that Victor got tears in his eyes when he received the ball. Although the kids were disappointed none of them got the ball, I explained to them the concept of the gesture and I think the disappointment was diluted with the arrival of pizza. Sonia was generous and splurged for 3 pizzas, thus blowing the curve for the rest of the year, but it gave us more time to chat and I always make the kids tell me one thing they did well and one thing they could work on that occurred during the game. We are all ready for our rematch with the Giants next week.

Other games:
Gibbs' Giants 12
Hynes' Heroes 0

Southern Trucking 16
Nick.com Defenders 3

Nick.com Defenders 6
Sunset Park 4

As always, updates to follow.