Shaddup Boyd

One of the greatest things about Spring in Minnesota is sleeping with the windows open. After six months of huddling under blankets trying to stave off hypothermia, Spring arrives and we throw open the windows and let the cool, clear Canadian air blow through the house and take the stench out. However, after six months of hearing nothing but the quiet hum of the furnace as we sleep, the sudden riotous noise of birdsong takes a little getting used to. Despite rolling out of bed at 5:45 am each workday, I seldom need an alarm in April or May. The birds have usually woken me by 4 am when the first pink blush of sunrise begins to lighten the horizon. Last night however, I was awoken from a deep slumber at 2 am by the wild bacchanalian sounds of an avian orgy in the lilac bushes outside our window. I’m not an ornithologist (I just play one on TV) but I am not aware of any birds that sing their fool heads off in the middle of the night. All I can think is that our alcoholic neighbor spilled some of his hooch in the bird bath by accident, and the feathery little reptiles were tying one on.

Which is all a fancy way of saying I’m tired. However, nothing is going to get me down this morning, for yesterday afternoon the slugging droogs of Our Lady of the Subdural Hematoma drubbed the little rich kids from St. Paul, and put them out of the game in the 5th inning with the 10 run mercy rule. Yes, our Catholic Athletic Association has a mercy rule, at least when we play other Catholic schools. Of course when we play the Lutherans or Baptists we show no mercy. Our team is now 4-3 on the year, with only one game left. I couldn’t be prouder of the boys, they have been a joy to coach. If there is anything I have learned in my years of coaching youth sports it’s that it is not about the kids. Seriously, if it were about the kids the little porkpies would be laying in front of the TV playing their Nintendo’s. No, youth sports exists for the edification of middle age men like me who lament the passing of their youth, and need to compensate for the emasculation of their virility in the modern world. Nothing soothes the shame of picking up a package of Mini-pads at Target, as well as barking at 10 year olds like a drill sergeant until they burst into tears. Seeing the fear in their eyes when they drop a ground ball, and look toward the dugout, is one of those priceless Kodak type moments that pass all too soon.

So as Spring turns to summer, it is with bitter sweet feelings that I bid adieu to another season of coaching baseball. 20 Prospect Jr. will continue to play for his local little league team for another month, but my managing duties are over. Now I will have to be content with shouting obscenities at the umpire from the distance of the third base bleachers. Damn restraining orders.

Fisheater Baseball

Another fine spring evening at the ball field watching 20 Prospect Jr. and his ball team. He’s playing on two teams at the moment, his usual little league team of Ritalin fueled miscreants from the public school system, and his 5th grade team from Our Lady of the Subdural Hemotoma. Where sports are concerned, we are very ecumenical. Let’s just say that I’m happy to be coaching the later of these two teams. It’s refreshing not having to work with parole officers to schedule practices. Also the Catholic league allows beer in the dugouts.

While 20 Prospect Jr. is now into his 4th year of organized baseball, and actually capable of playing the game, my own little league experiences were quite different. I started playing Little League, and Pop Warner football in the 2nd grade. In Batavia, unless they did really well at tryouts, 2nd and 3rd graders played in the minor league over at MacArthur Park. Most likely they still do. William Morgan would have been mortified to know that I played for the Masonic Lodge Stars. Yes, we were indoctrinated into their dark, nefarious rites at an early age. You’d think being a good Catholic boy they’d have put me on a team sponsored by the Jesuits or Opus Dei. Perhaps the Nuns pulled some strings to have me planted among the masons as a double agent. In any case, I was issued my red t-shirt, and red wool cap with a white S on the front. That cap, some dungarees, a pair of Keds, and a Wilson Paul Blair model glove were all I needed. No spikes, baseball pants, stirrups, or batting gloves were required to play little league. No parent took their kids to a hitting coach at an indoor batting cage to prepare them for the season. Ah, it was a simpler time.

I would ride my Huffy Thunder Road the four blocks to practice with my glove hanging on the handlebars, and a bat over my shoulder. Our practices were over in Austin Park, right behind the post office & city hall. Back in 77-78 they did not have a backstop or a ball field at Austin Park, just some dirt spots worn into the grass where the bases and pitcher’s mound were. We improvised a backstop for practice by parking our bikes in a semicircle behind home plate, so that wayward pitches would hit a few spokes before they rolled out into the street. And Lord, were there wayward pitches. Thinking back to my two years playing for the dastardly Masons, about all I remember was getting beaned by pitches. I think I got to first more times that way than by hitting the ball. In one memorable practice, my coach even beaned me in the helmet twice. Perhaps he knew I was Catholic.

Games were even less fun than practice. Back then they kept score, and there were actually winners and losers. No trophies for being a participant. Positions were determined by the coach, so if you stunk, you played outfield. No exceptions. I spent my first year picking dandelions in right field. By year 2 I had moved to shortstop, so I must have showed some signs of improvement. Still, I split time at shortstop with another kid, so half of the game I was on the bench. In 3 innings of baseball, I could realistically count on 1-2 at bats, which was fine by me. Any more shots to the head and I would have had permanent brain damage.

I only played baseball for two years, before I gave it up. Mom gave me a hard time about it, wondering what I was going to do with myself all summer, but I don’t recall ever having a problem finding something to do. Besides, compared to wiffle ball in the backyard, organized baseball was a bore. By 6th grade Batavia got its first youth soccer league, the Genesee Amateur Soccer Association. So I came out of retirement to play co-ed soccer with all the other uncoordinated kids, and a star was born. Well, a Falleti Motors “Striker” anyway. I led the team in scoring my first year, and made the all star team. We got to go play a tournament game inside of the Aud in Buffalo, but that is a story for another time.

It’s funny, but I don’t ever recall my parents driving me to baseball or soccer practices, or hanging around to watch us practice. No, we were left along with whatever shady adult had volunteered to coach youth sports. Baseball wasn’t a problem as it was usually someone’s Dad. Soccer on the other hand was coached by the hippy subversive types that you’d expect to coach a sissy sport like soccer in the late 70’s. Long haired, dope smokers for the most part, which put them right in the median for Batavia youth at the time.

Times were different then. Even at the age of 10 we were given a lot of freedom, that I would never consider giving to Lil’ Miss 20 Prospect or 20 P. Jr. Back then, all kids were free range kids. Oddly enough, despite the hippy freaks that abounded, spray painting LOVE and what not in the center of Oak Street, we all seemed to survive. I think Lenore is on to something. Although as I say that, I am watching 20 P. Jr. taking his hacks at the ball, waiting for practice to end so I can drive him home.

As a parent in a big city, I’m really torn. I don’t want my kids to grow up completely sheltered and be unable to cope when they finally get too old to keep locked in the basement. I want them to know the innocence, and freedom of being able to run around the neighborhood without a care. And yet, it’s a big city. Two folks were shot a block away from where we sat having a donut one Saturday morning. So I would be irresponsible if I were to let them run like I ran when I was there age. There’s a big difference between an inner ring suburb in a metro area of 3 million people, and a po-dunk town of 15,000 people. I am glad to have been blessed to grow up in the time and place that I did. I don’t take one second of it for granted. I hope someday my kids can say the same.

The Time Traveller’s Brother in Law

As I said to Bella in yesterday’s comment section. Perhaps all I needed to get hooked on a computer game was to find one appropriately pretentious enough. Which is why it’s not enough to just play Strat-o-matic baseball. No, I am playing the games using the major league teams from the 1909 baseball season. Oddly enough, having read several books about the dead ball era, like The Glory of Their Times, and Crazy 08, I am more familiar with the players from 1909 than I am with the current major leaguers. If that’s not pretentious, then I don’t understand the meaning of the word.

Which is all a lead in to saying that I spent my hour of free time last night playing games instead of writing a blog post. So today’s posting is going to be light on words, and heavy on pictures. I’m turning the dial of the Wayback Machine to 1909. It’s time to put on your bowler hats folks, we’re gong to the ball game.

Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators, taking batting practice in the stadium that would later bear his name.

Same vantage from Ebbets', looking out at the field. Back in the days when Brooklyn was rural.

The Red Sox, playing the White Sox in 1904 at South Side Park, Chicago

The Philadelphia Athletics, getting ready for their opening day game against the Highlanders (Yankees) at Hill Top Park in NYC.

George "Slats" McConnell, warming up before the game with Michael Cann. Even the nicknames in 1908 were awesome.

The 4th game of the 1912 World Series, between the NY Giants and the Boston Red Sox, at the Polo Grounds in NY.

Fred Snodgrass of the Giants, at the 1911 World Series

NY manager John McGraw, one of the finest cusser's in all of baseball, with catcher Chief Myers. Every player in MLB with a drop of Indian blood was called Chief back then.

Cincinnati's audaciously named "Palace of the Fans". A ball park that looked like an outdoor Opera House.

Speaking of architecturally significant ballparks, here's Shibe Park in Philadephia

Shibe Park, crowd milling about before 1914 World Series

Washington Park, Brooklyn New York. Flag Raising before game between the Buffalo Bisons, and Brooklyn Federals, of the upstart Federal League. 1914

White Sox vs. Cubs for the City Championship Series, at West Side Park in 1909

Smoky Joe Wood of the Red Sox, at Fenway. One of the greatest fastball pitchers of his day

League Park, Cleveland, Ohio. Back when the ballparks were made of wood, and the men were made of steel.

Boston vs. New York, at the Huntington, Avenue Grounds in Boston. For big games they would sell standing room tickets for the outfield, just to get more people in the gate.

and that’s enough for one day. All photos are from the Library of Congress. I’ve downloaded them over the years because, obviously. Click on them. Some of them have amazing detail.

Opening Day

Yes it’s that time of the year. Time for Little League baseball, one of the 2 sports that 20 Prospect Jr. has decided to play, much to Mrs. 20 Prospect’s chagrin. Back in the day it was just accepted that all little boys played little league baseball. In fact, I think it was a pre-requisite for Middle School, as it allowed the bullies to identify the weak, which saved them countless hours figuring out who they could beat up for lunch money. Woe beith the 3^rd grader that threw like a girl.

 

As I wrote about before, I spent last summer coaching 20 Prospect Jr.’s little league team. After the experience of coaching the Ritalin Rangers, I almost swore off coaching youth sports altogether. It has gotten so bad that a person needs a degree in Special Education to coach kids these days. But as you might guess, I have signed up for another go ‘round.

 

However, there is one key difference this year. I am not coaching in our local little league. Instead I am coaching 20 Prospect Jr.’s  5^th Grade baseball team from Our Lady of the Subdural Hematoma. We may not be the richest, smartest, or most hoighty-toighty Catholic elementary school in town, but at least the private school is allowed to weed out the children with police rap sheets. With the public schools you never know what sort of up and coming serial killers you are going to end up with.

 

So we are now 2 weeks into practices, and I must say, it has been a world of difference from last summer. The kids are all capable of throwing and catching a ball, and focusing their attention for longer than 3 seconds at a time. Why, I might even go so far as to suggest that I am enjoying it. I might even start to think that we have a chance of winning some games, if I didn’t already have 2 years of experience coaching girls soccer in the Catholic Athletic Association. The cost of tuition at one St. Paul private school we played last fall was $23,000. I kid you not. At a school like that they have the full time, paid coaching staff from their High School giving instruction and development to the 5^th graders.

 

I was reminded of this again last night at the coaches meeting. Gathered in a gym were the softball and baseball coaches of every school in the St. Paul CAA, receiving our schedules and instructions on the rules for the upcoming season. One coach asked about the rules for baseball bats this year. Did the new Little League bat regulations govern what types of bats the teams could use? Sitting in the bleachers I looked at my counterpart on the 5^th grade girls softball team from OLSDH, and said “Bats? They get bats? We’re lucky that our school springs for a box of baseballs.”

 

But as always, hope springs eternal, and for the next week I will continue to live in my illusion of being competitive. After all, if I could lead the Ritalin Rangers to a 2-12 record last summer, there’s no telling what sort of miracles I can work with these boys.

Beside Still Waters

Despite the seductive promises of global warming, we are suffering through another year without a summer here in Minnesota. It has been cold, wet, and cloudy, all month. Which would make for a good wheat beer, but a lousy summer.

This past weekend 20 Prospect Jr. had a baseball tournament with the big kids. Our local baseball association does not have a regular traveling/tournament team at the 3rd & 4th grade level, what with the general lack of fine motor skills due to the high quantities of lead in the groundwater. So 20 Prospect Jr. asked to play with the 5th & 6th grade team, which was looking to fill out their roster. Last weekend was our first “real” little league tournament, and let’s just say it was eye opening.

The tournament was being held in one of those frou-frou Southwestern Minneapolis Suburbs. I won’t say which, so let’s just called it “Mercedesville”. (Seriously, we parked next to a BMW 7 Series. I don’t think we’ve ever had a BMW 7 Series even drive through our suburb.) It had rained pretty heavy the night before, so when 20 Prospect Jr. and I showed up at the field at 7:30am it was a little swampy. Our game was pushed back a half hour to give the grounds crew time to prepare the field.

I

Kid

You

Not.

They had a grounds crew. Not some Dad’s with a rake, but a guy employed by the City of Mercedesville to attend to the grounds of their Little League Baseball Estate with his helper elves. It would be unthinkable to play a game with the fields in poor condition apparently, which was a sharp contrast to the tournament we hosted last year, when it rained all day, and we played in ankle deep puddles. I can remember one line drive that hit the infield mud and just stuck there. The pitcher had to dig it out to throw it to first. But I digress.

It was a gorgeous facility, with seven or eight fields, a real batting cage, a snack shack, and park pavilions with a lake and a beach. I felt like we should have brought a picnic basket and stayed for the day. We’ll, we did stay for the day. Due to the on again, off again rain, we didn’t get home until 9 o’clock at night. In between we got creamed by three different teams, from three different towns in much higher income brackets.

JAY-ZUS.

The other teams were outfitted better than some minor league teams. For our uniforms, the head coach had borrowed T-shirts and hats from his regular 5th & 6th grade team, and brought them along for 20 Prospect Jr. and some of the other kids to wear. So even though we just had lousy cotton/poly t-shirts, compared to the full knit uni’s of the rich kids, we at least matched.

Those rich folk take their baseball seriously. The best (worst) part was watching one of their coaches chew them out after they let in 3 runs one inning. Despite the fact that they already had 13 at that point. He called them together and gave them a speech about not “letting off of the pedal”. Honestly, once you take your boot off our neck you never know what we peasants will do. Why take a chance? Keep the riff raff where they belong.

Despite the thumping we received, 20 Prospect Jr. had a ball. I was afraid he’d be intimidated playing with the big kids, but he wasn’t. He picked up on the rule differences, and the larger field, and had more put outs than any of the other infielders on his team. He even stole some bases, which had him thinking he was pretty hot stuff. At this level, EVERYONE can steal bases. Really, not even the rich kids with their personal trainers can throw a runner out at second playing on a high school sized field.

It was a long day, but a fun one. Well, for 20P Jr. and me anyway. After shivering in pissy rain all day, Mrs. 20 Prospect Jr. looked at me during the car ride home from Mercedesville, and stated in no uncertain terms “I am NOT watching baseball on TV tonight”.

Sunday was overcast again, but dry and a little warmer. For Father’s Day we took the Puppies and drove over to Stillwater, Minnesota, one of our favorite places to go bumming. The Nature Valley Grand Prix bicycle race was going on through the streets downtown, so we wandered around the course, and watched some of the race. It always amazes me what athletes these riders are. 20 laps up lung busting Chilkoot Hill at speeds I can reach only by going downhill.

Chilkoot Hill in Stillwater - The photo doesn't do it justice.

Bonzaiiiiiiiiiiii

Stillwater is an old lumber town on the St. Croix River. A hundred and more years ago it cut a bazillion board feet of lumber out of the White Pine logs that lumberjacks floated down river from the Northwoods of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Now it’s just a quaint 19th Century town, with a marina, and lots of shops and restaurants.

We walked around, had some ice cream, killed the better part of 2 hours, then drove home. Of course, we made time sure to stop at the Candy Store for some Salt Water Taffy first!

Tremblay's Sweet Shop

It was a day spent doing precious little, but we did it together, and on Father’s Day what more could I ask?

The Lift Bridge over the St. Croix

We’ll, I suppose I could ask to get dropped off at the Husband Daycare… but I’ll save that for our next visit.

Rev it up

Everything in life has a cycle. Whether it’s sun spots, lycanthropy, or biorhythms, things tend to follow the great sine wave of existence, oscillating between -1 and 1. June & July are the bottom of the sine curve for my blog readership. The daily visits to my front porch drop by 40-50% every summer. Can’t say I blame anyone. Summertime is too short to waste sitting in front of a computer.

Which is just my way of saying that I will be posting less in the coming weeks.  We’ve got our own vacations planned now that the kids are out of school. Also, work has been busy as we are in the midst of planning season. So while I will still take time to post, it will most likely be less frequently. Please, try to contain your disappointment. No really, I hate to see grownups cry.

Furthermore, I am sure to be spending the next few weeks considering my future career plans. The Ritalin Rangers won their second game last night in convincing fashion, over a team that had previously beaten us by double digits. Given the amazing turnaround in our season, I am now being inundated with offers from Major League clubs looking to replace their current managers. It will be a tough decision, as I would really prefer to keep the kids in their current school, and not disrupt their lives too much with the vagabond existence of a MLB Manager. So I have some tough decisions to make. I won’t name names here, out of respect to the current managers who don’t know the axe is dangling over their head. I’m considerate like that.

So, happy Friday everybody! Here’s a few summer time tunes to get you in the mood for a summer weekend. Put the top down, and get out on the highway! Or if you don’t have a convertible, just take your top off and roll down the windows.

Ronnie & the Daytona’s – Little GTO Warning! This will be in your head all the damn day!

Dick Dale – Nitro Because, obviously.

Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild (The Easy Rider intro video. Dig those choppers!)

Ministry – Jesus Built my Hot Rod Nobody, with a good car, needs to worry ’bout nuthin!

Davie Allen and the Arrows – Moondawg 65′ When I go on my book signing tour, I’m hiring three girls to dance on the stage like this in the background.

Play ball!

“And is there anything that can tell more about an American summer than, say, the smell of the wooden bleachers in a small town baseball park, that resinous, sultry, and exciting smell of old dry wood.” – Letter from Thomas Wolfe to Arthur Mann

link to letter here

Summer continues to be a fickle mistress here in Minnesota, placing hot steamy kisses on our lips one day, then disappearing for weeks without so much as a phone call. Following our 103 degree day, we’ve had nothing but sweatshirt weather. I like sweatshirts. In fact, about 30% of my wardrobe is composed of nothing but old sweatshirts, but it’s time for summer. It’s kinda sad seeing parents huddle under blankets at our little league games. Baseball is supposed to be a hot weather sport. A sport for fanning yourself with a program, and sipping a cold beer. A sport that is as much a part of summer, as the mosquito.

One of the most integral parts of childhood in Batavia was our minor league baseball team.  From age 3 to 20, no summer would have been complete without at least one trip to a baseball game. When I was growing up the team played in an old wooden stadium about a mile from my house. When I was little my Mom and Dad would walk to the games with me. I can remember being 5 years old, eating peanuts with my Dad, and watching the game from the old wood grandstand. I couldn’t crack the shells myself, so I would just eat them shell and all. The crowd would stamp their feet on the floor boards during a Batavia rally, the chicken wire backstop would shake, and dust would settle down from the rafters.

June bugs would  swarm the transformers on the light poles, drawn by the heat and glow of the mercury vapor lights, as the sun set over the left field fence. Dad would buy a program for 50 cents, and I would wait for the drawings to be announced between innings, hoping that I’d be the lucky kid to win a baseball, or free ice cream at the Dairy Queen. More often than not, it was a free car wash, or something of much less value to a 5 year old boy.

The homes on either side of 20 Prospect were owned by elderly women who belonged to a time of doilies and fringed lampshades. Born near the turn of the century they had raised their families, and buried their husbands long before we moved onto the street. Their large four square homes had more room than they needed, and in the summer they would lend out their spare rooms to the ball players.

Being just a short season Class A team, the players on the club were just kids of 19, 20, or 21, who were starting late after finishing up high school, or college ball, catching on to a minor league club after going late in the amateur draft. In the 70 year history of the club, there have been only a few big names to come through our little town. But growing up these kids were big leaguers to us. They were young, and muscular, and carried exotic names, accents, and skintones onto our little street. We’d see them in the early afternoon, walking down the street from the corner store with a Pepsi, and some chips on their way to the ball park for a game, and we’d pause from our games to watch them go by.

1981 Batavia Trojans

In those days before cable TV super-stations, professional baseball was something you either saw in person, or watched on Saturday afternoons. To little kids like us the distance between Dwyer Stadium, and Yankee Stadium was hard to understand. We knew that these players had a long way to go before they’d play in the major leagues, but we had no concept of what long odds they faced.

On the annual kids night, the stadium would be overrun with hordes of wild children. But except for a few nights when I went with my little league team, I always had to sit with my folks. I didn’t mind. They let me pick the seats in the last row of the grand stand where we could look back to watch foul balls hit the cars in the parking lot. Whenever a foul made it out of the park, which was almost every foul ball in Dwyer, a scrum of pre teens would go scrambling after it. Some nights the action in the parking lot was more entertaining than the game, as long haired “Jackie Earle Haley” types on ten speeds tried to impress the Farrah Fawcett haired girls in knee high tube socks and short-shorts.

The team rarely won during those year’s. They were the woeful Class A affiliate, of the woeful Cleveland Indians, and wins were few and far between. The stands and the field were in tough shape back then. Gaps in the plywood outfield fence would let balls through for ground rule doubles.

 

Old Dwyer Stadium – 1998

As I got older, the games became a regular hangout for me and my friends, as well as half the kids in town. (The other half were presumably hanging out in the Pizza Hut parking lot, or drinking at the end of a dirt road somewhere.)

 

 

The Old Wooden Grandstand

In the 80’s the team lost the Cleveland affiliation and came close to folding. They reverted back to an independent organization for a few years and struggled on. When the Trojan Manufacturing Company was sold to a German conglomerate the club dropped the “Trojans” nickname, to the chagrin of teenage boys. They resurrected the Clippers name from the early days when the team was sponsored by the Massey-Harris Company whose factory on Harvester Avenue was the city’s prime employer. By the 1990′s they landed the Philadelphia Phillies affiliation, and their prospects began to improve, both literally and figuratively.

But when Major League Baseball put strict new regulations into place regarding the dimensions and amenities that would be required to maintain minor league affiliation, the clubs days seemed numbered again. Miraculously, local government came through and secured state funding to tear down the old wooden stands, and replace them with a concrete and brick park, with a brand new field and clubhouse.

The new ball park

 

The New Dwyer Stadium

They changed their name to the Muckdogs for reasons that are still hotly debated around town, and the team survived. Not every New York Penn league town was so lucky. At some point in the last 20 years, the costs of running a minor league club, even a Class A one, have soared, and one by one the small upstate towns like Geneva, Elmira, Oneonta, and Olean have seen their clubs move on to bigger cities with deeper pockets.

Despite losing money for years the club has somehow managed to hang on. Who knows how much longer they will last, but for now the crack of wood bats will still be heard on the corner of Denio and Bank. Teenagers will still flit like sparrows through the parking lot in mating rituals as old as the game itself, and for the cronies on the First base line, the peanuts will taste as salty, and the Genny as cold as it always has. Blocks away on Prospect avenue, people will sit on their porches in the flickering light of citronella candles, while the far away sounds of the PA mixes with the soft buzz of mosquitoes.

Welcome home summer. Welcome home.

Hope Springs Eternal

The temperature hit 103 degrees yesterday. So I take back all that bullshit about being too cheap to turn on the air conditioner. We had that sucker cranked to eleven, and the inside of 20 Prospect was like a meat locker. It is days like this that I am reminded that Mrs. 20 Prospect insisted on 2 things during our house search; a 2 car garage, and air conditioning. She’s a wise lady, despite her obvious lack of judgment in choosing a husband.

But while it may have been hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, it was not too hot for baseball. So we filled a cooler with Gatorade for the boys, and headed out to the field after dinner. It’s never too hot for baseball.

The sun beat down on the infield dirt, and the wind whipped across it, churning up clouds of lunar dust. We went about our warmups as the parents set up their lawn chairs in the shade of a distant tree. We had played our opponents once before, losing an excruciatingly long affair, and the promise of two plus hours of watching grass grow was not thrilling. As the visiting team we had the dugouts facing into the stinging, dusty wind. Squinting like a Bedouin I surveyed my lineup, making last minute adjustments to account for the kids who hadn’t shown up, trying to strategically position the 3 kids capable of catching a baseball for maximum effect.

The game began with a walk, and then a funny thing happened. We got a hit. Then another. By the end of the 1st inning we had put two runs on the board. Who was this team? Where had these kids suddenly learned how to swing a bat? Maybe, just maybe the six weeks of beating our heads against a wall trying to teach them was finally starting to work.

It's a hit!

We took the field and promptly gave two runs back with throwing errors, and all around clueless play. Sigh… maybe the spell had been broken after all. Yet we were still tied at 2 heading into the 2nd.

We scored again, and this time retired the opposing batters 1-2-3. We were in the lead! OK, it was only one run, but for the first time all season we were in the lead! And with our pitching ace, 20 Prospect Jr., due to pitch the 3rd & 4th innings, there was hope!

Safe!

We plated 3 more runs in the 3rd inning, and held them scoreless again. Now we were winning 5-2! Like for realz! The boys were buzzing with excitement. They were running the bases like jack rabbits, and making catches and throwing runners out. We had a chance at winning this thing.

The opposing pitcher struggled with control, and we broke the game open with 5 more runs in the 5th. This was turning into a blowout, and for the first time we were on the winning end of it. It was the bottom of the 4th, and already it was approaching 8 o’clock. Chances were strong that we would only have to play 5 innings before we reached the time limit. With a 6 run rule in place, if we could just hold them scoreless one more time the game would be over!

Then the unthinkable happened. Suddenly, for the first time in 2 years of pitching little league, 20 Prospect Jr. began to struggle with control. He walked 2, then gave up a routine pop fly to left field, which our left fielder watched as he pirouetted in circles with his glove over his head. The ball landed in fair territory, and two runs scored. 20 Prospect Jr. looked to the bench, and it was clear he was wilting in the heat. We only have 2 kids that can pitch with any accuracy, and he is one of them. Like it or not, he had to stay in the game. More walks followed and they scored again. Then I saw it. 20 Prospect Jr. set his jaw, and dug into the pitchers mound. He stared down at the batter with steely determination, reared back, and threw it with all he had in him. He struck out the last 2 batters and we got out of the inning still clinging to a 5 run lead.

It was now 8:15 pm. The 5th inning would be the last one. If we could score 2 runs in the top of the inning we could end it right here. So of course we struck out swinging, 1-2-3. On to the bottom of the 5th.

We were now onto our 3rd pitcher. A sweet harmless 4th grader capable of either throwing fireballs right down the middle of the plate, or bouncing them off of the backstop. It’s a 50/50 thing. He walked the first batter on 4 pitches. Then he walked the 2nd batter on 4 pitches. When he finished walking the 3rd batter without having thrown a single ball anywhere in the vicinity of the strike zone, I called time.

What should I do here? I hated to break the kids confidence by calling in another kid to pitch, but the team had played their hearts out and really deserved a win. I wanted them to have a chance. Even if the other team hit the ball out of the park it would still be better than walking in 6 runs to lose a game. So I went to the “bullpen”, the only other boy on the team that could throw the ball from pitchers mound to home plate. He’s a shy, quiet kid that is one of our best fielders, but is deathly afraid of being the center of attention. I called him over from first base, put the ball in his hand, and told him to forget about the score, and just throw the ball over the plate. He took his warm-up throws, and with the sun rapidly sinking behind the school the game reached it’s climax.

His first pitch sailed over the catcher and hit the umpire in the facemask.

OK, things were going to get interesting.

He walked in one run.

Then he got a gift when the next batter swung at a pitch 2 feet over his head. He followed up with a strike and the count was 2-0. Then he bounced the next three pitches in the dirt to run the count full. I could barely stand to watch, but the next pitch was right down the middle for a strike out.

One down.

He promptly hit the next batter in the leg to let in another run. It was now 10-7, with one out and the bases still loaded.

The opposing coach kept telling his batters “Don’t swing! Make him throw you a strike!”. They were at the bottom of their batting order now, and the kids at the plate had no hope of hitting the ball anyway. All we had to do was throw it over the plate and we could get out of here.

The next batter stood like a statue with the bat on his shoulder as we walked him on 6 pitches.

10-8.

Then our pitcher suddenly found the strike zone. Another strikeout! We were rolling now. One more and the game would be over.

The next kid walked on 4 pitches.

10-9. Base loaded. Two outs. I turned to the Dad keeping score for us, and said “If you’re not a praying man, now would be a good time to start.”

I closed my eyes and said “Please God, Please! These boys have played so hard. Let them win one game so that they can experience what it feels like.”

A strike!

Then a ball.

Then a foul ball. Strike two!

Then two more balls.

Full count. This was it. This was the pitch. It all came down to this moment. In the gloaming dusk of the hottest day in 23 years, a skinny, bespectacled ten year old boy stood on the pitchers mound. All eyes on him. The parents on the hill holding their breath. Each second stretched like an eternity.

Over on first base, 20 Prospect Jr. pounded his glove, and chewed away on his wad of bubble gum. In right field the outfielder was swatting at bugs with his glove. The 3rd baseman stood in idle conversation with the baserunner, and the shortstop worked intently on the sand painting he was scuffing into the infield.

The pitcher started his windup. The roar and chatter of the opposing team’s bench seemed to fade into the background. His arm came forward. High above us an airplane traced a pink contrail through the sky. The batter leaned his weight onto his back foot. The ball spun through the air. The world turned on its axis. The batter stepped toward the plate, and the bat became an aluminum blur as it cut through the air. Somewhere a rooster crowed. Then the catchers mitt exploded in a cloud of dust.

Strike three.

cue the theme from Carmen

The parents cheered. The boys looked around confused. I called out to them. “Boy’s, that was 3 outs. Come on off the field.” They trotted towards the bench. The coaches gave them high fives as they came off of the field. “You won!”. “We did?”. “Yes, you did!”. “Really?”. “Yes, really!”

At 8:47 pm on June 7th, 2011, the most amazing and unthinkable thing happened in a weedy lot behind a middle school in Moundsview, Minnesota. The Ritalin Rangers won their very first baseball game.

CHAMPIONS!

June Bugs

The wind is blasting out of the south this morning unrolling a wet blanket of humidity over the land. This is summer; thick, chewy, moist summer. I hope we top 90 today. I want to see the sun bake the asphalt into a sticky, tarry, flypaper. I want to sit on my porch in the evening and listen to the leaves unfolding themselves, as they stretch, and yawn oxygen into the darkness.

Ever feel like a June bug flying into the window over, and over, and over again? Thinking “this time it will be different. This time I will break through to that warm inviting yellow light and immolate myself on it”. Well, that’s kinda how my attempts at writing are feeling these past few weeks. Vain, pointless efforts to break through an invisible wall inside my head, where I can immolate myself in warm, inviting, memories.

(thunk)

It.

(thunk)

Just.

(thunk)

Ain’t.

(thunk)

Happening.

(thunk)

Speaking of beating my head against a wall, our Little League team lost by double digits again last night. We have lost 7 games in a row by a combined score of 85 to 10. I know what you’re thinking. How on earth did we manage to score 10 runs? By the Grace of God my friends, by the Grace of God.

I have never seen such a collection of uncoordinated, unfocused, nine and ten year old boys in my life. I have 4 players out of 13 that are actually capable of throwing and catching the ball. Coaching them has been interesting. The experience has given me new, deep found respect for Special Ed teachers. Only 7 more games to go before I can close the books on this season, and turn in my clipboard. If I can get these kids through the next 4 weeks without any more chipped teeth, or head injuries, I will consider it a successful coaching job.

Until then, I’ll keep

(thunk)

On

(thunk)

Trying

(thunk)

To break through.

(thunk)

Pray for me.

I see the boys of summer in their ruin…

Well that whole rapture thing was a bit of a bust. Bummer. I was really looking forward to pretending I had been hoovered up into heaven, and not coming to work today. But while it may have been a disappointing weekend from a divine point of view, it was not without it’s share of Armageddon. The tornado sirens went off both days, and we had to huddle in the basement watching every Minnesotan’s favorite TV Sport. Emergency Weather Broadcasts.

Seriously, after having spent 17 years in this state I can now explain the finer points of “wall clouds”, and “hook echoes”. Minnesotans are total weather geeks. We know the obscure in’s and out’s of weather ephemera better than we know the rules of baseball.

Sunday’s tornado was the closest call we’ve ever had. It passed within a 1/2 mile of our homestead. We suffered no damage, and bizarrely, looking at the yard afterward we didn’t even have leaves fall off of the trees. I guess that’s normal in a storm like that. The damage is confined to a narrow area. Watching the news, it seems like the folks in North Minneapolis got the worst of it.

Once the storm had passed, the sky cleared, and it was another achingly beautiful spring evening. The sunlight shone in golden beams upon the neighborhood, as if the storm never happened. It was a dream like summer evening, and Mrs. 20 P. and I sat on the front steps with the pups, as the kids played in the yard. They had been shaking with fear just an hour before, and now they were as carefree as could be. Kids are like puppies that way. They live in the moment. I remember those days, and can place my finger on the moment at which they ended.

It was 1983, the last summer of my boyhood. I was fourteen years old, transitioning from freshman to sophomore years of high school, and caught somewhere between childhood and young adulthood. That summer was to be the last of the worry free, unencumbered, summers of my youth. It stretched out before me in bright sunshine, and dappled shade, three months of freedom from the tyranny of alarm clocks. Late nights spent watching late night TV long after Dad headed off to bed. Mornings spent sleeping until 10 or 11 o’clock, only to be awoken by the scuffling sounds of sneakers in the gravel driveway, followed by footsteps and voices on the back porch, and the tinny knocking of kid fists on the screen door.

My bedroom window at 20 Prospect was right above the back porch steps, and I could hear the neighborhood kids gathering below on the porch steps. Ranging from 9 to 14, the boys of Prospect Avenue would gather for sports every day from spring to fall. Summer was the height of our baseball season, as the street hockey sticks were put away in the basements and garages, and the ball gloves and bats came out.

Eventually the knocking would cease, and the kids would start calling up to my window for me to get out of bed so we could play some softball. As the kids in the neighborhood had grown, and the number of them multiplied, our ball games had moved from wiffle ball played in the backyard, to softball played in the park around the block. Being the oldest, I was expected to be the team organizer, equipment provider, and chief umpire for the games. In addition to the collection of bats and balls that had accumulated over the years from my big bruddahs beer league softball, I also had a collection of old Frisbees that served as the bases. At times there seemed to be no end to the treasures and effluvia that collected in the cellar of 20 Prospect, in large piles, and cardboard boxes, crammed in every corner.

That was also the summer I had received a glove for my 14^th birthday. It was the first new glove I had gotten since 2^nd grade, and I spent much time looking through the Brand Names catalog picking it out. In the end I selected a softball glove as big as a peach basket. It hung off of my spindly arm like a suitcase, but I loved it, and spent hours rubbing it with neatsfoot oil, and storing it with a ball stuffed deep in the pocket, and rubber bands around it to give it the necessary shape.

Rolling out of bed, and getting dressed, I would collect the equipment, and we would set off around the block on our bikes. I suppose we could have walked over to the park, but our bikes served a dual purpose. The park we played in was a large grassy, tree speckled square in front of the Blind School, known as Centennial Park, although I never quite understood what centennial it was commemorating. The park had once been the front grounds of the Blind School, and in the 1800’s had been lined with walking paths, lily ponds, and a large gazebo. At some point it had become a city park, but had always been kept undeveloped. Perhaps that had to do with the fact that the park was on the side of a a large hill. In the winter it served as the premier sledding hill in town. In the summer, it was just a shady, grassy place to walk the dog or play a game of catch.

The NYS School for the Blind in 1868. The pond at the lower left would become our ball field 114 years later

The maple trees that had been planted along the walking paths in the 1800’s had grown into a woods, and the walking paths had long since been overgrown with grass. There were no baseball diamonds in the park, or any other playing fields. But in the clearing where the old lily pond had been filled in, neighborhood kids had worn out a baseball field. The maple trees served as a towering, leafy roof above the field, and made pop flies a challenge. We’d park our bikes in a semicircle behind the home plate dirt spot, to form a backstop, and set out the Frisbees for our bases. After choosing up sides the games would begin. With only 9 or 10 kids, it took a bit of range to cover the field. Line drives would bounce off the trunks of the maples that served as foul poles, and determine if the ball was fair or foul. Balls hit deep to center would bounce and roll into the trees and make throws to home a real challenge.

Cenntenial Park in 1910

We could have chosen to ride a few blocks farther and play on one of the real ball fields at McArthur, Austin, or Woodward field, but Centennial was our park, and it seemed only natural that we would have our games there.  The list of ground rules for which trees were in play, and which were foul, was long, but there was no beating the cool shade of those maple trees on a hot summer day.

The park today

At the time it never occurred to me that this would be the last year I would spend playing ball with the neighborhood kids. I had played it all my life, from the time that I was the little mop haired kid that was relegated to right field, right up until I was the defacto league commissioner. But I was fourteen now, and my interests were about to change. I had discovered girls a few years before, but it would be at least a year before the girls discovered me. That last summer of my boyhood would be spent on the ball fields during the daytime. My evenings would be devoted to soccer practice, or long rides on my ten speed out past the Community College, and the Airport north of town, and into the mucklands of Elba. When night came I would be hanging out on Chris’ front porch, talking for hours about sports, and girls.

By mid-August it was over. Football practice had begun again, and I was sentenced to three-a-days in the buzzing, swampy, heat. The next summer would be spent in Drivers Ed class at the Community College, mowing lawns, playing soccer, lifting weights with the football team, and pursuing girls at the Trojans game. If only I could have found a way to bottle it up, and store it away. What I wouldn’t give to take one of those bottles down, and pour myself one of those lazy summer days right now.

I think of those times now that 20 Prospect Jr. is 10, and lil’ Miss 20 Prospect is 11. These are those magical years when they are big enough to do the big kid stuff, but still small enough to be able to spend the day playing, unencumbered by responsibility. So I watch them bouncing on the trampoline, or playing 4-square in the driveway, and know what they do not. That in another 30 years, these memories they are making will shine like gold in their middle aged memory.

Dylan Thomas was right. We are the sons of flint and pitch. O see the poles are kissing as they cross.