At the end of my other story, Enter Little League, we left this pint-size team, having successfully snatched victory from jaws of defeat. I didn’t offer much of a description of how this was accomplished, other than a timely hit during the last inning. To give you a flavor of the baseball acumen of both these teams, I will just note that the final score was something like 25 to 24. At best, I think there were maybe nine balls actually hit, and maybe only two of those got into the outfield, with some direct assistance from the infielders.
It was your classic pitchers’ duel, but with a reverse concept of “How many can we walk?” A majority of the runs were created by walks with the bases loaded. On one occasion, one kid was forced in by yet another walk, and to show his baseball prowess, he slid into home. Out of curiosity more than anything else I asked him, “Why did you do that?” He answered, ”I don’t know! I just wanted to try it.” Our would-be orthodontist, Westley, who I had nick-named “Doc,” was standing there and commented, “He probably had an irresistible urge.”
There were many strikeouts, but very few were called by the umpire. One of the kids actually had hit a ball that bounced twice before it got to home plate. “Doc” swung so hard at a pitch, he missed it, but the ball hit the bat’s back swing and he ended up on second base. Now that takes real talent! His mother came over later, and asked me if I had taught him that trick. I told her, “No! I think Westley has got God-given talents.”
“Doc” was one of my two innings players, who played in the outfield. I say played, but I mean he usually sat down and plucked grass or filled in gopher mounds. I don’t think he hit the ball again the rest of the year. “Doc” was a good kid, the smallest kid on the team, tried real hard, came to all the practices, and would come up with some of the funniest one-liners that I ever heard. He was only with the Dodgers that one year, as his family moved. I often wondered if he ever did become an orthodontist. I knew one thing for sure; he was not going to be a professional baseball player!
For those of you that have not had the Little League experience, I will explain a few of the rules that exist to impede the natural tendencies of the kids to be a little assertive, and get into the spirit of the good clean fun of baseball. As an example, there was a rule stating you can’t wear spikes. This, of course, eliminated the need on my part to teach them how to sharpen their spikes. There was another rule that said “no stealing,” which I think was incorporated to give the impression that this sport is meant to be a role model against the concept of theft and general corruption. I must make note to you that there was no mention of the use of steroids!
To make matters worse, if you’re on any base, you had to stay there until the pitcher released the ball. No leading off. If the catcher failed to catch the ball, you still had to stay there, meaning you can’t run down to second or third or anywhere. You had to stay there. Another rule was the manager or coach could not go onto the field. During one of the games, our infield was in its usual sieve-like configuration. My second baseman attempted to field a ground ball, missed it and fell on his face, got up, sat down on second base, then threw his glove at our pitcher. I was really encouraged by that, because the glove actually came close to his target.
I could see he was upset, so I went out to talk to him. The umpire, a 16-year-old kid, came over and said that I couldn’t do that and I had to get off the field unless the kid was hurt. I looked at the kid umpire and said, “I think he gave himself a hernia.” I don’t think the umpire knew what that meant, because he just turned around and went back to home plate.
One of the other interesting rules was something of a mandate. All players must wear a jock strap (aka athletic supporter) and a cup. I was somewhat intrigued by this level of protection at this particular point in our young men’s development, and conceded the only possible necessity for this might be for the catcher. I passed out the device at a team practice. It got more than a little complicated when I tried to explain to the team what the purpose was, and how to wear it. They seem to accept my explanation. I knew that both the rule and I were doomed to failure when at the next game, they were flipping their jockstraps like slingshots – over the fence into the crowd of the parents. After that little episode, we were known as the “Flying Jocks of the Dodgers.”
Westley’s Mom came to the dugout and demanded an explanation. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know what this little elastic strap “thingie” was, or why the boys were being so unruly! Tom and JJ Junior thought this concept was so funny that they wore them on the outside of their uniform trousers. The “big guy,” El Presidente was there, and he went into absolute hysterics at this scenario. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to enforce this rule. I could hear it now, “Okay gentlemen, crotch inspection time.” Later, he told me that the Dodgers had to have a little more self-restraint on the field. After he said that, he started laughing, turned around and left.
After the first couple of games, which consisted of the kids not doing much more than running around the bases, the Dodgers management went into a strategy conference, which was me talking to myself. Clearly, the name of this game was “run until you have to stop,” and hopefully that’s at home plate. It was evident at this stage that there was not going to be a lot of hitting, and if there was that happy accident, the kids needed to understand that it was unlikely that the ball would end up in the right place at the right time.
So, we really worked on running the bases and watching the other players throw the ball here, there and everywhere. It was probable that if at any time someone actually hit the ball, the likelihood of someone catching it was about as remote as finding the Fountain of Youth. I had eliminated infield warm-ups because it was too painful to watch.
We still had at least one practice a week, and sometimes two. It clearly became important to attempt to instill the basics, because if we could do that we could be competitive. Doing nothing but getting bases on balls was pretty boring, and I could tell that the kids felt that way as well. I had one rule. You had to show up for practice if you wanted to play more than two innings. I asked only that they call me if they were going to miss practice. I had a couple kids that thought they were too good to have to practice, and when they didn’t show up, I wouldn’t start them the next game.
On one occasion a father came over, who appeared a little red-assed, asked me why I wasn’t starting his little Johnny, because clearly his ”little Johnny was one of the best players on the team.” I just looked at him and told him that little Johnny doesn’t like to come to practice, and these other kids worked for a couple hours to improve their skills. So if little Johnny wants to play more, then he should show up for practice. With that, Dad turned and went back to the bleachers. Little Johnny started showing up for practice.
We concentrated on hitting and fielding, and naturally I took the best players and put them in the infield. We didn’t use the T-ball concept because hitting a stationary target versus a moving one is two different things. Four of the kids could actually pitch well enough to get the ball close to the plate, some of the time, so we didn’t work on any of that. I didn’t bother to teach them any pitches, like a curve (which should not be used in Little League anyway because it can screw up a kid’s arm in a hurry).
By about the fourth or fifth game we actually started getting hits, and much to everyone’s surprise, we were able to throw runners out – once in a while! The concept of a double-play was well beyond the reach of these kids. One of the interesting things that happened, without any surreptitious activity on my part, was some of the players would go to other teams’ games and would come back with scouting reports. When we played the other team, the scouts would come up and remind me that “that’s so-and-so, and he can hit.”
Another rule was that pitcher could only pitch so many innings per week and could not start two games in the same week. There was no way to enforce this rule, other than the managers all making sure that it was adhered to. These teams would sometimes play three times a week, so you could burn through your “pitching staff” in a hurry. Pitching staff is defined as any kid that can get the ball over the plate – every so often! I had explained this rule to the team, and much to my surprise, that became part of the scouting reports. “Hey coach, so-and-so pitched last Tuesday!”
If you’ve read my other story about Little League, then you’ll remember that during the draft I thought one of the managers kept muttering “Just win, baby. Just win!” He was also the guy that drafted the two “ringers.” They were the hated Giants, and were leading the rest of the teams by at least two games before we reached the halfway point of the season. We were about two or three games behind them, but they were fairly good, and not likely to lose the first half.
We were about to play the Giants, and “so-and-so” walked out to the mound to start the game. Good old Westley, “Doc” said, “Hey coach! That kid pitched Tuesday against the Reds, and according to Rule 14, paragraph 4, sub-paragraph 3, he’s not eligible.” So I went over to the Giants’ dugout and got the attention of “Just win, Baby.” I said something to the effect that “I don’t think your pitcher is eligible because he pitched on Tuesday,” and mentioned the rule. He got a little huffy and said “Well, nobody follows that rule.” I just looked at him and said, “I do!” I didn’t think to ask him if he had his jock strap on.
The kid stayed in as pitcher for about five innings. We ended up beating them by four runs. After the game, I went over and told this guy that I thought he should talk to the league president about the rules relating to pitching. It turned out that the manager who had lost to them that previous game was in the stands watching the game, and told our league officials about the pitching rule violation. They fined him $50,000. He got off by filing an appeal and settled for a six-pack of Bud.
As the season rolled along, I came to the conclusion that the kids were absolutely fantastic. The problem was some of the parents and some of the managers, who seem to have forgotten that these were just kids. Winning is important, but not as important as the concept of a team and sportsmanship. In talking with other managers, it was apparent our League was really low-key compared to others, and they knew of events in other leagues that were absolutely preposterous – with parents and managers getting totally out of control.
Moral of the story – Sometimes an athletic supporter is more than a fan.
J.J. Addingnuttin 