Defenders--Game 7

Anthony pitching

Early Saturday morning, May 19, 2007--the clover is in full bloom and the grass is growing at a fabulous pace; if it continues, it will be a good hay season when it comes to cutting time. Wait, don't think you signed onto the wrong blog, this is merely a description of the field conditions our squad is having to endure. Our indomitable groundskeeper (name withheld for security reasons), had announced to me a few weeks earlier that he was in a tiff (a tiff is a male equivalent to a hissy-fit) with his boss over his actual duties and accomplishments. So, he announced to me, "I'm not gonna do any work on the fields and then they will see how much work I actually do for them." I withheld the urge to discuss the merits of his labor-management dispute and who the real losers are (those who use the fields) and that the fact that none of his bosses ever come to the damn fields may have an affect on the efficacy of his work stoppage stunt. I really wish I had my rake back right about now.

Undaunted, I slowly played in the dirt to reconstruct the batters box and pitchers 'mound' (it is not really a mound since the softball leagues [see earlier posts for accurate descriptions of said leagues] can't handle a mound. Apparently all those aging, fat, kid-kicker-offers have trouble tossing their softballs off a mound) before we placed our 2 game winning streak on the line against Southern Trucking. It had rained off and on the past two days so the dirt was malleable enough to get it into a semblance of a playing field. There is still the occasional glass on the field, but the number of crack vials, empty beer cans and used condoms littering the fields and dugouts has dropped drastically from when we first started our league. Leonel (Giants coach and local resident) told me the cops are always checking on the fields and don't allow people to hang out there late at night. Early Saturday games always have me a bit apprehensive about how many kids will show and what time they will show. So as I get the field ready and get the equipment sorted out, I am always straining to see if little green-capped kids are slowly making their way towards me. The night before our game I get a call from Kenny.

Kenny at practice

"Coach, we're not playing tomorrow, right?"

"Why do you think that, Kenny?"

"It's supposed to rain."

"It's not going to rain til later in the day, we will be playing."

Silent pause.

"Well...., I am in Pennsylvania right now, I thought it was going to rain, so I won't be there tomorrow."

"Well Kenny, maybe you could have told me that at practice yesterday, now what are we gonna do for a catcher?"

"Anthony can catch."
"Anthony is pitching, he can't catch."

Silence.

"Oh."

"What are you doing in Pennsylvania, and why didn't you tell me about this before Kenny?"

"Coach..."

"Yeah?"

"Ahhh, Coach Brett..., you just got punk'd." Lots of laughter from his side of the phone.

"I'll see you in the morning Kenny and don't be a minute late or you will be sorry."

And that ended our daily chat.

Earlier in the week at practice, Kenny and I had a little encounter. As I mentioned last week, he has been acting up a bit and feeling a bit too confident. He also has not been trying as hard in practice. At one point in practice, he jumped on my back and challenged me.

"Come on old man, you can't handle me."
"You want to wrestle, Kenny?"
"Yeah!" he yelled with enthusiasm.
I immediately dropped to the ground with him on my back. He let out a little yell of joy, thinking somehow he had caused the fall. He was completely unaware that I had been a wrestler for 6 years. While still reveling in his apparent victory, I did a quick hip roll and arm-barred him into the ground face first and put a fancy little leg move on him that had him on his back in a banana-split. This took all of about 4 seconds. He quickly yelled out that he gave up. He stood up, with dirt on his face, shirt and pants and had a wide-eyed look of shock on his face.
"Wanna go another round?"
"NO!"
"We cool?"
"We cool."
We both shook hands and proceeded with practice. Kenny's granddad Victor was close by watching and said nothing about the tussle. The kids, were totally nonplussed by the ordeal and these are the moments I am glad I am not coaching in the suburbs. I would have been arrested with my face all over the papers, instead I just heard Victor saying in his thick-accent, "Good for him, he is a pain in the ass." Victor has previously told me, numerous times, that I could do whatever I felt necessary to discipline the boy. For the last few practices, it has been fun challenging Kenny every time he grabs me from behind with a quick, "You wanna wrestle again?" He quickly lets go and backs away with a fast "No!", and we resume our drills.

As we warmed up for the game, Quincy's 8 year-old little brother showed up again. I admire the little guys spirit and spunk and total fearlessness. I found out his name is Quindell, not Dwindell, and it is appropriate that he is a little Q-man since he is the spittin' image of his older brother.
"I'm gonna help you again."
"O.K."
"You gonna pay me for this?"
"No."
"I think you should pay me for helping you."
"Do you?'
"Yeah."
"Well, when I get paid for doing this, little man, I'll pay you."
He wandered off for a minute or two before returning.
"I want $300."
"For what?" I said rather incredulously.
"For helping you. I should get paid for helping you." he stated locking a gaze into my eyes.
Somewhat amused, I asked him how he was able to walk. He gave me a quizzical look without saying anything.
"I just want to know how you are able to walk around with balls that big?" A couple of the older kids laughed and I am not sure if little Q understood it all but he knew he wasn't getting $300.

The game started early since we both had our squads ready. Our opponents owner, the Steinbrenner of our league, was acting a bit too much like ol' King George and was in Florida for the game (no word if he was actually in Tampa), but rumor had it he was following the game by satellite phone. They were pitching Gian and we countered with Anthony. We had a new ump and we batted first.

Gian threw strikes and got through the first inning with only a walk blemishing his performance. Christian did not help matters when he, defying coaches orders, bunted with two strikes and was promptly called out for fouling off the pitch. Anthony ended the inning with a deep fly out to center. Anthony walked the first 2 batters, but we were not concerned because he usually starts slowly the first inning. However, the second walk was a bit of a tight call on a full count and you could see it flustered our boy. We got out of the inning on a classic little league play of a grounder to the pitcher, a throw to first, a throw home, a throw to third and then the third baseman, taking coaches orders a bit further than intended regarding throwing too early in a run-down, chased the runner all the way to second and tagged him right before the runner got back to the bag. We were down 1-0 after 1.

Second inning had us strand two runners around a trio of strikeouts and Anthony went back to the mound to face the lower half of their batting order. 4 straight walks, a hit batter and another walk was not what we were expecting from our ace. The ump squeezed him on a couple of pitches, but Anthony allowed the calls to get in his head. They followed with two hits from the top of their order and we were fortunate to get out of the inning with only giving up 4 runs thanks to some plays at the plate. Anthony was a basket case at this point and didn't want any consoling. Upon reflection, this was where we missed our wonderful bench coach, Sonia. Sonia is a very quite presence on the bench, but she is always talking to the kids and chills them out when they are getting tuned up and the rest of the coaches are caught up in the details of the game. It truly was a case of you don't know what you have until it is gone moments. We had to remove Ralph from the field after the second inning because he was transfixed on something occurring nearby. As the game was proceeding, Ralph was staring towards the street. "Ralph!" No response. "Ralph!" No response. After 4 yells, he turned towards us. 2 pitches later, the same thing occurred. He had not been benched all year, so he took a seat for the rest of the game.

Down 5-0 after 2, we started the third with a baserunner (Quincy walked) and then Kenny roped a shot to right-center. I was waving Q-man around third, he hesitated, then continued and was out by half a foot. We have been stressing to the kids to follow coaches instructions and to not hesitate. In fact we went over that point in our pre-game chat. Kenny eventually scored and Southern Trucking got the run back in their half of the inning. Gian mowed us down for two straight innings, and we went into our last at-bats down 8-1.

Quincy struck out swinging, Kenny doubled and stole third while Jeremy struck out. Christian was our last batter and he had a 2-2 count and things were looking bleak. A passed ball occurred and I sent Kenny. He hesitated just a second and was thrown out in a bang-bang play, and all havoc broke loose. Apparently Kenny's granddad, watching behind the backstop made a derisive comment to Kenny and he exploded. Threw his helmet, ripped off his uni top and tossed it and left the field. This all happened before I could get from third base coached box to our first base dugout. I got the rest of the crew lined up for the handshake line and Christian, pissed at everything, refused to shake hands and was disrespectful to the coaches. I grabbed little man and forcibly made him apologize to the coaches as I made him shake their hands. I then apologized to the coaches and informed them that he would be disciplined for his behavior.

I gathered the team for our post-game breakdown. Christian had stormed off saying, for about the fourth time this year, that he was quitting. Kenny was across the street fuming in his t-shirt and baseball pants. A couple of the kids asked if they should get them.
"No!" I said with a tone that would have made my dad proud. "They left the team, we didn't leave them." I then did a head count. We had 10 kids still there.
"We got 10, we still have a team. Is everyone cool with that?"
"Yeah." they said in unison, not really believing the two would not be back.
"We just need to find a catcher." Clayvon, Kevin, Josh and Quincy all raised their hands.
"I'll back-catch, coach." Quincy yelled.

Back-catching is a unique term that I have only heard in Red Hook. Somehow it survives without any assistance from any of the coaches. They also call the glove a 'back-catcher's glove'. I told them we would have tryouts next week.

Tytee, asking rather concernedly, "Coach, are Christian and Kenny off the team?"
"Well, they quit us and unless they return and apologize and ask to be back on the team, as far as I am concerned, you guys are my team for now."
I then addressed Anthony letting the ump get to his head (he walked 10, matching his total for the year), Ralph for not paying attention at third, and Quincy for hesitating on the basepaths. I than told them I took some responsibility for running too aggressively by getting 2 out of our 6 baserunners tossed out at the plate. But we also had to give credit to our opponents. We put the ball in play every inning and their defense was stellar to say the least. Not one error, and that is unheard of in little league.

Taylor, Tytee and Clayvon asked if they could go speak to Kenny as I was putting up the equipment. I told them that was fine and that I was going to watch the rest of the Heroes-LICH game being played on the other field. I had to grab the bases after their game was over. Not wanting my team to disperse right away, I told them whoever waited around til the end of the other game would be rewarded with ice cream. That brought some smiles and the kids hung around and played ball with each other and a couple of the kids from the other team.

The Heroes beat LICH 14-4 and had won the previous day over Sunset Park 8-2. The Giants crushed Sunset Park on Saturday 18-5. The standings going into the Memorial Day break were:
Giants 5-1
SoTruck 5-1
Heroes 3-3
Defenders 3-4
Sunset 1-4
LICH 0-4

Kenny apologized to me and said he had apologized to the team. He asked for his jersey back and I told him it was in my trunk and he could get it at practice the next week. I also told him he was not getting any ice cream for his behavior regardless of how pissed off his granddad made him. I walked over to the ice cream truck with about 4 kids and Coach Chris was returning with about 4 kids, all eating ice cream. Coach Chris and Anthony

"There is something strange about this ice cream." the coach told me. He then expounded on the fact that nothing on the truck even said 'ice cream'. They continued back to the fields eating their treats and dispite all the warnings, we got in line. The kids, diving into their cones, declared something was strange about the ice cream. I got my cone and after the first bite, I concurred with everyones analysis that something was wrong. We continued to eat it and laughed about how we would all get sick from it and I figured it was a fitting end to a once-promising day: eating sour ice cream.

Next game is June 2 vs. Hynes' Heroes. As always, updates to follow.