Defenders--Game 4

Fresh off of our rainout on Saturday, I wandered my way down to the field on Sunday to meet Anthony and to give Taylor and Tytee a note to get them out of cheerleading early so they could make Monday's practice. As I awaited my kids arrival, I was asked to hit some grounders to a brother/sister combo who play in the league but for a different team. After about 10 minutes of hitting the ball (I was hitting from left field towards centerfield on field 7), two officious, uptight looking umps come yelling at me from the game they were playing on field 8 (their right field abuts our left field). They were umping a game of a bunch of whiny-looking liberals in a mixed league format. There are generally two types of mixed format leagues--the beer league where a bunch of fat guys masquerade as athletes while they try and hit on the rather hot mandatory 3 females per team. The amount of beer consumed can at times dictate the 'friendliness' quotient of any particular game. These games are played in the evening. The other type of mixed-league is the early-morning leagues with a bunch of whimpy, malnourished-looking slacker dudes (the type who wear black socks, sneakers and shorts) and patronizingly-voiced women (the ones who form the 'there are no losers, we are all winners!' happy-assed youth leagues that exist out in the suburbs) wandering about the field without a clue of what they are doing. They do get traumatized, as evidenced by their nervousness, when young urban youths come in close proximity to them. They are especially intimidated when these youths wear a leather glove on one of their hands.
So the two umps start yelling at me about being in their field.
"I am in MY field, not yours." said the valiant coach.
"You're in OUR field of play." and the ump motioned from their home plate out past right field way beyond the batsman skills any of the granola teams currently playing possessed.
"I am in my quadrant," I said doing my own motioning of field areas, "How about you leave me alone and get back to your game?"
We exchanged some words about permits and permit rights when he said,
"We can't start until you get these kids out of here because if they get hurt you'll be suing us!" He completely tried moving this from a territorial dispute to one of child safety.
"You're trying to change the terms of debate here, we are discussing land rights, not liability issues, my man."
Blank look by ump towards coach.
"So you think one of these kids here can't get hit? Just because Tom Seaver is pitching in Shea, you think nothing is going to get hit to right filed? Well, don't be so sure." the ump finally retorted.
I chose to not escalate the argument, partly because he was hurting my brain with his faulty logic and partly because I am saving my getting the cops called on me moments for times when I actually have a permit. It is interesting to note though how ruthless adults will be in trying to move kids off of playing fields so the adults can play amongst themselves and how often they are willing to do so.

So we had a practice Monday and that was to be it until game-time Saturday since coach was going to be out of town the whole week and the other coaches could not get any free time. The fields were taken by four high-school games, including one game between two bad girls softball squads. We were able to squeeze onto their left and left centerfield and we just played a game of catch where I give them 3 points for a grounder, 5 points for a fly and 7 for a 1-hopper. Minus points if they miss the ball or throw wild. It gets fairly spirited and I assigned Coach Chris as scorer when Josh asked how many points he had. Coach Chris quickly learned any point total given with a sound of conviction would satiate the kids demand for who was winning this new contest. They started complaining about everyone knocking each other over, but after I ascertained that they all had signed injury waivers, I found nothing wrong with continuing the game. We try to stress responsibility to our coaches in this league.

Kenny called twice and Christian once while I was gone trying to get numbers of kids so they could practice. The second time Kenny called he also let me know that he was practicing pitching but had to cut his session short because he set off the alarm at Defonte's (a local sandwich shop).
"How did you set off the alarm? "
"Well, I was throwing the ball against their wall and I threw one really hard and it set off the alarm."
"What happened when the alarm went off?"
"I don't know, I ran home."
Although impressed with his instincts, I had to ask the evidentiary question, "Did you remember to get the ball?"
"Yes."
So for now, I think we are in the clear on this matter.
Right as my plane landed Friday, my phone rang as we were still sitting on the plane. It was Kenny. He called to report that Jeremy was indeed ready to pitch on Saturday and was pumping himself up. Kenny also informed me that he had not been in much trouble that week and we both just let it go at that, neither of us feeling like we needed a precise definition of 'much' at that particular point in time. However, he informed me that silent John was suspended by his mom for 'something' that happened at school.

Saturday morning came and I quickly found out that a total of 3 of my players, John, Clayvon and Christian were all suspended by their parents for school transgressions. Christian was allowed to come to the field, but could only play 'if we needed him.' One could interpret 'needed' in many ways, but ours was to hold him out as long as 9 showed up. All these suspensions make me want to reconsider our Code of Conduct policy and maybe loosen the reins on our standards (kinda like certain college football teams do to compete), but we are sticking to our policy(so far). Quincy re-appeared and we got him in a uni and our two divas showed up 25 minutes late, (still arriving earlier than the Cinco de Mayo celebrating Sonia) but early enough to be in the line-up. I forgave their tardiness because they had been celebrating Tytee's birthday the night before. Coach had to stop them from getting too detail oriented when the story started reaching into the 2:00am stages of celebrating. Both Taylor and Tytee have been working hard and Taylor was rewarded by batting fifth--a risk at some level but one that paid off and had me wishing I had batted her higher.

Jeremy was on the mound for his first-ever pitching assignment and Anthony had a 2 inning limit on him because of his pitching in our last game. We played Hynes' Heroes, the team sponsored by the local District Attorney's office. They have a lot of young kids, but they have one really good player, Carlos, and another decent kid, named Jose. Jose is the kid who quit the Gibbs' Giants on uniform day because he didn't like their uniforms and wanted to play for the yellow team. Leonel, coach of the Giants, had an incredulous look on his face when told of this request, and the change took place after determining Jose was completely serious. Jose wears the popular designer glasses that all the women are wearing and coifs his hair meticulously and is constantly worried about his appearance. The other kids have taken to calling him pretty boy, and even his team joins in on the action. When he was at bat Saturday, their coach yelled out that he would take pretty boy to the salon if he got a hit. He seems to take the ribbing in good stride and is generally unaffected by it all.

We batted first and Kenny roped the first pitch deep into left field. The ump called him back to the plate (new ump to us) I could not believe he would even think of calling this a foul since the ball landed 30 feet inside the line.
"I wasn't ready." and he chastised the pitcher for pitching before the ump was set. Kenny then milked out a walk, stole second and third. Josh, batting second, walked and we promptly sent him to second hoping to draw a throw. They didn't take our bait, but Kenny scored on the next pitch as Anthony was at the plate. Josh made it to third and we were looking at a big inning. However, Anthony struck out for the first time all season. It shocked our squad and we quickly reverted to being in a rally to posting a racist inning (k,k,k). Jeremy walked the first two batters and they both scored on wild throws to second by Kenny. We settled down and got out of the inning with the final two outs coming from Kenny tossing out a runner at second. Our next four innings were goose eggs with only a couple of runners. Particularly galling was the third inning where Kenny led off with a legit triple and ended up stranded as we posted a third straight k,k,k inning. Carlos pitched a really good game against us. Kevin got plunked for the first time in his career, and coach decided to bust out an ice pack after hearing Sonia telling Kevin that his arm turning purple was not really a good sign at that particular moment. See, we do stress responsibility amongst our coaching brethren. When asked if he needed to rest an inning, Kevin's response was, "Are you crazy, I'm going to play the field, man!" and he ran out to his position.

In the bottom of the third, they loaded the bases with two outs, including a nice snag of a pop bunt by our catching whiz Kenny. They hit a grounder to Josh at shortstop and the runner, ball and fielder converged all at the same spot and unfortunately the ball booted off his glove and into center field. We caught a minor break when their third runner failed to slide during a play at the plate and got us out of the inning. (little league rules do not allow barreling over fielders) It was 4-1 going into our last at-bat. Jeremy roped a hit down the line, but it was only a single because the rightfielder, playing out of position, was actually in position to make a nice stop of the hit. Taylor got a hit (her second of the game and 3rd in her last 4 at bats). Ralph whiffed and Kevin worked an 0-2 count into a walk. Tytee, Joel and Quincy were due up. Between them they had 6 at bats and 6 k's. But I knew Tytee was due and sure enough she laced a 2 run single through the infield. They were self-destructing in the field, arguing amongst themselves, and I called for Kevin to come to third as the team was arguing and then the classic little league chaos took over. At one point Tytee and Kevin were on first and almost third and then they were both on second at the same time. By the time the dust settled, it was 4-3 with Tytee back on first and Kevin called out for leaving the baseline as he wandered between second and third. Tytee stole second as Joel was in the midst of a 1-2 count. He is a free swinger and I had no hope for either a hit or a walk. This is where I wish we had interpreted Christian's mom's edict of "needed him' a bit looser. They threw a high ball 2 and Tytee, on coaches urging, broke for third, slid under the tag (which was promptly dropped by the 3b anyway) and was called OUT by the ump. End of game. Tytee was distraught and would not take any consoling from the coach. Right as she got in the batter's box she had told me she was really nervous. I just smiled and told her to give herself a birthday hit and to just relax. I was so proud of her hitting, running and sliding, but nonetheless it was a heartbreaking loss which coach took 70% of the blame for by running us out of the inning.

Jeremy pitched a good game, walked too many, but all the runs he gave up were unearned. Anthony hurled 1 solid inning and the loss of Christian really hurt us since he would have been inserted in Joel's spot later in the game. Kenny threw out 4 runners, Josh did well in his first game at SS and Taylor and Tytee impressed the coach with their hitting. Taylor seemed surprised when I told her she would move up in the line-up again next week and I asked her if she thought I was only doing this because I liked her. Smiling, she said, "Yeah, a little bit." but I reassured her that batting order was sacrosanct and all spots were earned. Tytee hit well and slid well and will be our secret weapon come play-off time. She is moving up a spot or two as well. She also earned brownie points by yelling at a couple of kids who were playing catch near the Defendermobile and were getting too close for her comfort. Gotta love a kid who looks out for the car with such fervor.

We are back to a 6 team league and will have a revised schedule out this week. The new team will be Long Island College Hospital (LICH). All teams will play each other twice and all 6 teams make the playoffs. This weeks scores were:

Southern Trucking 14 LICH 2

Hynes' Heroes 4 Nick.com Defenders 3

Gibbs' Giants 14 Southern Trucking 1

As always, updates to follow (and standings as well).


PHOTOS (from top of page to bottom):
Coach Brett, smiling for some reason (a score or a humorous error)
Kenny, being a hambone
Quincy, the brother from another planet
Taylor, trying to look bad-ass
Anthony, being all serious