About once
a year, usually at the first sign of Spring, the Weekend section in
the Washington Post runs a generic article about the popularity of
softball in the Washington metro area.
They always seem to mention something along the lines
about "the abundance of softball players" in various
county leagues.
Let's
get this straight: I am
not a softball player.
Rather,
I play softball. A
softball player is a 245-pound Guy wearing $130 wrap-around
sunglasses carrying a high-tech bat bag with a custom-made glove and
a titanium bat that ate up at least a couple days' salary at his
construction job. He
travels the country on weekends playing in tournaments with
simple-named teams such as the Anheiser-Busch Kings or Team DeWalt.
The
Softball Player is the Man when he passes us in our rinky-dink
orbit. I'm 160-pounds
of pure bone. My glove
set me back about 45 bucks and I have a difficult time convincing
myself that a bat over $100 will ensure me plenty of views of the
right-fielder's back as he chases down my $100 triples.
Our team names are the Hawks or the Screaming Chickens or
Giddyup. Giddyup!
The Softball Player may say that with all seriousness in
bed, but he'd never play for them.
Me, I think it's hilarious.
Giddyup! Play
ball!
------------
Being somewhat of a dreamy loner kid, I spent way too much of my
childhood in San Diego making up stupid solo games to occupy my
summers and Afterschools.
Yellow
Tonka backhoes and bulldozers were my first passion, but pushing
dirt around and making Truck Backing Up noises had it's limits.
Then came the fall of 1975. My dad was listening to something on his transistor radio as
he cursed at his latest home improvement project.
The Reds and Red Sox.
The
World Series. Baseball.
I was seven. I picked a team. The
Red Sox. Socks were
silly, childish, perfect.
The Reds won (not surprisingly), but I was hooked.
Good thing it wasn't the Red Sox and Giddyup.
That kind of tough choice might have turned my interest back
to digging holes.
My
dad bought me my Clichéd First Glove.
One hundred percent plastic.
There was no pocket, no stitching, no autograph, and, for the
first few months I'm sure, no catching.
I spent many long and loud hours bouncing a tennis ball
against our garage door and trying to catch it off the crazy bounces
of the door handle. Bonk.
Ground out. Bonk. Double. Bonk.
Pop up. One of the bonuses of smacking the ball off the
garage door was that it drove my piano-playing older brother Dave
nuts. His piano
practices just happened to coincide with my Major League rookie
pitching debut. Garage Door League, 1976.
My pitching rubber was the crack in the cement 15 feet from
the door. Anything
"hit" past that crack was a single.
A double went into the bushes separating our house and the
Rowe's house. Through
the bushes was a home run.
Thanks
to the build-up of dead leaves under those bushes, I rarely gave up
a dinger. I don't have
all the stats off-hand, but I'm sure I led my league in wins,
strikeouts, and no-hitters.
One
glove later, I began playing Little League.
My first team wore purple and white and called themselves the
Scoopers. Pooper
Scoopers would have been more appropriate for a group of 8 year-olds
running about cluelessly twice a week.
We all played every position--and not very well either. All I really remember from that first year is hoping the
games would end quickly so we could use our 35¢ Treat Tickets at
the snack bar. I'm sure
I played all the positions on the Scoopers.
Except, probably, pitcher.
Three
more years of Little League consisted of only three more memories,
two of them being miserable.
I
recall being beaned by a pitcher my first three at-bats in a game.
For a 9 year-old kid, getting hit by a pitcher was the greatest of fears.
"Shake it off!" the coaches would yell.
Yeah, I shook--the fourth time I got up to bat.
The other miserable memory I have is when I really had to pee
during a particularly long inning in centerfield.
One good thing about playing in the outfield is that you're
fairly secluded from everyone else, so I let it fly.
I later claimed I spilled a Coke all over me, but I suspect
everyone knew.
As
for the best memory
I had
from Little League, it came in an unassuming game in an unassuming
season. I really don't
remember the game, the score, or whom we were playing, but I
definitely remember how the game ended. I made a
spectacular catch on my knees in left field for the final out of a close game.
And after the catch, my team carried me off the field on their shoulders
and gave me the game ball.
Not
only was that my first great catch, but at the time, it was my short
life's shining moment of pride.
And
thus, I've been in left field ever since.
