Greetings to all Defender fans as well as all Red Hook Youth Baseball fans,It's
back! The blog that chronicles the league and the team that you all love to
follow, Red Hook Youth Baseball League and the Defenders.
For those of you who have been readers, you know what to expect. For those of
you who are new to this blog, it is an unvarnished look at how an inner-city
youth baseball league is formed and operated through the view of one particular
team in general, the Defenders -- the team I founded and have run for 10 years.
There will be some humor towards the youth so if you are all touchy about making
fun of kids (in a good-natured way, of course), you should probably unsubscribe
now. The beauty of coaching is the day-to-day humor these kids bring, whether
intentional or not, every day you are with them. And just remember, you have to
really love someone to make fun of them, and one thing all these kids get from
us coaches, is just that. If you wish to be removed from this emailing, just ask
and your request will be accommodated.
Before I begin with any stories (Today was the first day of open practice), I
want to make a shameless plug for the league's new website (and soon to be
future home of the blog) The site is: www.redhookbaseball.org The site was set
up by our fearless Commish, James. We were all glad to see that James finally
was doing something other than sitting up in his penthouse office overlooking
the water. Other than organizing the coaches, recruiting sponsors, procuring
field permits, ordering and picking-up uniforms (and trophies at the end of the
year), hiring umpire crews, buying equipment and distributing it to the teams
and making schedules for three leagues and 14 teams, he really doesn't do much
for the league. So here is a shout out to you JB -- keep up the good work.
redhookbaseball.org redhookbaseball.org redhookbaseball.org
redhookbaseball.org
One more shameless plug and that will be it. We are running a new league this
year for 13-15 year-olds. It is our attempt at keeping even more at-risk youths
engaged in positive activities and puts them around good role models as well as
guys like me and James. By adding this new tier to our league, it obviously
increased our expenses, especially since two umps work the older kids games ($70
per game --$3500 for the year just for umps for one league). So, when you go to
the new website for theleague, redhookbaseball.org, there is a link to a donor
page. You can now make a donation straight from the website. One thing I can
assure all of you, there are no administrative costs to this league. Every
dollar donated is spent on uniforms, equipment, baseballs, umpires and trophies.
No donation is too small. And that is it for the shameless plugs.
Just a quick story about today: we had 70 kids show up with many s couple of
coaches and some returning from absences with many veteran coaches returning.
We had a good showing from the female side and it is always good when we get to
have a true co-ed league. As we were organizing the kids, our long time
nemesis, middle-aged men in expensive uniforms playing softball on a little
league field (they are too fat and out of shape and poor in talent to play on a
man's field) started encroaching on our field. Accustomed to this scurrilous
behavior by these eternal adolescents, we proceeded on undaunted. Their
encroachment became unbearable when they started whipping around their
softballs (pun intended) close to our 7-12 year old kids on the field. They then
informed us in a rather cavalier attitude that they would be starting a game on our
field at 11:00 a.m, a mere 27 minutes away. We informed them that there were no
permits on these fields til April and that we were on the field. They retorted
by claiming to have been on the field first -- a bald-face lie. I had been by
the fields at 8:30 (no one there) and no one was there when James arrived.
Their claim, basely formed on the legal theory of adverse possession, was that
they had cleaned the fields way early in the morning and thus had claim to the
land.
We were unfazed by their lame argument as we had tried that same argument
twice in 2006 (including the infamous 'go ahead and call the police on me' game)
three times in 2007 and once last year. We told them that we had cleaned many a
field only to be kicked off by old fat guys playing softball on a little league field.
Then some old dude told us he felt for us which I told him not to say that since
it wasn't true as they were trying to boot 70 kids off a field. Another old dude
said he understood our plight since he had a kid in little league but that they
were there first. I was privately amused listening to these old geezers sounding
like 11 year-olds with their playground logic pleas. I was trying to remain calm
as I didn't want to have police contact at the first practice when all of a
sudden James was pulling a BT and yelling at some of the old-fat guys. "Yeah,
you should be real proud, 45 year-olds kicking a bunch of kids off the field."
He used an adjective before the word 45 that I believe was a foreign word. It
was a word I obviously never heard before, it started with an F and he said it
with real conviction, so it had to have been some sort of french or something.
Anyway, we realized at this time it was about 30 of these dudes all staring at
us and about 4-5 adults with about 40 of the smallest group of kids you ever
wanted to see. The old dudes had more weaponry than us as well.
It all got resolved when the parks department guy, Miguel (more on him in the
future) rode his golf cart into the middle of the impending melee and told the
old dudes the kids took precedence and they couldn't have the field until we
were done. One of the softball players who play on little league fields came
over to negotiate a treaty in a face-saving effort. James. ever the graceful
diplomat, made the guy feel as if it was his idea that the kids could have the
field and we all left feeling pleased with the outcome.
Ahh, what a glorious start to the baseball season. More to follow.
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