After a two-year hiatus, my professional responsibilities had changed once again, and I was given the opportunity to manage in the “biggies.” In our Little League community this was called “the Majors,” and consisted of players between the ages of 10 and 12. When you reach 11 years old you were out of the minors, regardless of skills, and so the Dauntless Dodgers were disbanded after succeeding to multiple championships, thanks to the tutelage of yours truly. Don’t I wish?
The coach that followed me knew what he was doing, and “Dem Bums” had a rather fantastic record, mostly because of the few players like “Scooter,” who, when on base didn’t know when to stop. I was happy to hear that his Mom, “Miss Congeniality of 1901,” was continuing her quest and was harassing the new Dodgers coach. I had begun to think I was not going to be in her will.
The new team was given the name “Indians,” and I was pretty unhappy about that for a couple of reasons. One – the Indians had to be one of the worst teams in pro baseball, and two – I was worried that the parents would develop the “chop” and “war chant” adopted by the Atlanta Braves. I had a plan to have the kids put on war paint before every game, but Blue-eyes talked me out of this idea as being somewhat insensitive. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I did teach the kids a few steps of a war dance and we would yell “Geronimo” anytime someone got a hit. The gang decided that everybody’s nick name was “ke-mo sah-bee.” I heard later that they were doing the same thing in school, and that it didn’t go over real big with the administration. Nobody has a sense of humor anymore! By the way, “ke-mo-sah-bee” means good friend or good scout, not the more popular interpretation of the old joke “**it for brains.”
The rules were pretty much the same as the minors; however the skill sets of the kids were greatly improved. You could no longer just run rampant on the bases, because some of the curtain climbers were quite capable of fielding a ball and delivering it to the proper place, in a reasonable location and at the proper time. For me, that was a great revelation and I would clearly have to change my winning strategy, which could best be defined as “antelope baseball.” These kids could actually get the ball out of the infield and in some instances the 12-year-olds could hit that thing a ton.
Come draft time, I really didn’t know much about most of the players and the only tryouts that were held were for new kids just coming into the league. The Indians only had four returning players. Tom was one of them. I had to rely on JJ Junior and Tom, whose acumen in these matters exceeded mine. I got JJ Junior because he was my son and I think he regretted it when jokingly one day I said, “Thank God, we’ve got an experienced catcher.” He worked me up a list of names for the draft, and one of the top players was Scooter. He told me I really needed to draft him, and my comment was “Yeah, but the problem is – you get Scooter, you get his Mom.”
Junior confessed that I had a good point. I thought about it and the solution I came up with was to draft Scooter, and make his Mom our assistant manager, figuring if she had some complaint I could just look at her and say “Talk to the assistant manager.” Also, that way I could fire her. It didn’t happen because Scooter went in the first round to the Red Sox. I was able to draft a couple of the old Dodger doofuses.
So, we started the practice routine with the same rule – make it to practice if you want to play more than two innings. True to form, I had drafted a couple of prima donnas that figured they didn’t need to practice, and come the first game, which we lost, they did not start and were relegated to two innings. They still didn’t show up for practice and they didn’t start the second game, which we won. They again only played two innings and got the message. The Indians still had their fair share of the less than competent, two-inning players. Unfortunately, none of them had Doc’s unique one-liners. The neat thing was these kids didn’t complain and were team players, and when they were playing they did indeed concentrate.
On our first game with the Red Sox, all of the gang showed up with feathers stuck in the back of their hats. Our faithful gallery of parents and friends thought this was hilarious. Where they got all of the feathers, I will never know and probably don’t want to. I suspect there were some poor unsuspecting chickens running around somewhat bare-assed. No question – these kids were resourceful.
Scooter’s Mom was there and came to our dugout somewhat indignant. Her comment was to the effect that we were being politically incorrect. She said our name was bad enough, but all of the war whoops and general Indian antics was really an insult. I looked at her and said “It’s really okay, because one of our player’s name is Inder Singh.” She looked at me as if I were two cans short of a six-pack and went back to her bleachers, shaking her head. Score one for JJ! I was thinking that maybe she should move to Cleveland and start a crusade. I’m certain she wrote her congressman that night. I guess I should say congress-person.
We lost that game to the Red Sox. Scooter got walked on four pitches, and scored the winning run on a legitimate hit in the last of the seventh. He was still doing the squat routine at the plate, no strike zone, which irritated me no end. I guess that’s what you could call being hoisted on your own petard. Scooter came over after the game to say hello. His mother, Ms. Congeniality, came quickly to our dugout, scowling with the obvious assumption that I was contaminating his mind, probably teaching him swear words in Navaho. She gave me a look that could only be interpreted as triumphant, and that this loss was my penalty for being politically incorrect. I never met Mr. Congeniality, but I suspect that she nagged him to death and that he was buried someplace in their back yard.
When I got home, I did a back-flip into martini, shaken not stirred, and Blue-eyes commented that she had seen the encounter. She said she was going to make it a point to sit next to her the next time we played the Red Sox and cheer for the Indians while humming the Braves’ war chant, accompanied by the Tomahawk Chop. Clearly, Blue-eyes’s Bohemian-Indian blood was up, because she headed directly for the “fire water.”
On another game days, one of the kids showed up with a can of eye black. The next thing I knew, not only was it under their eyes but it was on their noses and a couple of the more inventive ones drew a mustache and sideburns. One of the league officials was there, and of course, they were required to remove this distasteful display of non-adherence to the sacred rules of Little League. I didn’t know this person and asked that he show me where in the rulebook it said they couldn’t wear eye black. Granted, they over-did it a little bit, but I think this fell in the same category as jockstraps and cups.
Naturally, I got blamed for having a bad attitude and received a phone call from the league president, who also had no sense of humor. I’m sure the feather episode didn’t help, because I’m certain they got a phone call from some irate chicken. I think I offered to share the eye black with any team that wanted to use it, and if necessary, by the chickens – dead or alive.
For the most part, the Indians were good group of kids, with the exception of one of the prima donnas who did nothing but complain about his fellow teammates and their lack of skills not being equal to his own. He was getting called out on third strikes, and of course, this was always an umpire’s bad call. I told him one of the strange idiosyncrasies of this game is that if you want to hit the ball, you must swing at. This kid was a real pain, but I know where he got it from. His dad, or possibly his custodian, was obviously vicariously reliving his youth, and had stopped me after another game which we had lost and made a bunch of suggestions.
One of his more brilliant observations was, “We should really do the double play more, because we were allowing too many runners on base.” My answer was, “Hell, we’re lucky to get the ball to first base, let alone thrown it all over the field trying to do a double play.” He was somewhat insistent, so my solution was to invite him to come and help me during practices and he could concentrate on the “double play.” That ended that, he didn’t have any more constructive ideas about how we should try to play baseball. I say “try,” because at that point that’s the best that could be said about the Indians’ efforts. Our “war whoops” were getting more authentic, however.
We actually did get a double play in a subsequent game and I looked around for him, but he wasn’t there. He was probably busy writing the memoirs of Abner Doubleday. Some of the parents were thoughtful enough to offer me a “cold one” after the games, and of course I got busted and got another phone call from the league president. His position was that we should be considering the kids and I think I commented “The kids should bring their own beer!” Whatever happened to “beer; hotdogs, peanuts and Crackerjacks” being part of the grand old game?
Our record was dismal and unfortunately matched the performance of our professional namesake. The kids were taking it pretty well, and the general comments they made after yet another loss was “We are in a rebuilding mode.” We came in at the bottom in the first half of the season, and I lost two of our better players and had to draft up a couple more ten-year-olds from the minors. Thanks to JJ Jr’s scouting report, they turned out to be better players than the two we lost.
The “pappoose’s” comments were that we would do better in the second half. I think they were thinking along the line of “Little Big Horn,” and that I was “Custer.” The team was positive, but I was less than optimistic. After our last game at the halfway point, which we had won rather handily, one of the dads came up afterward and said “Well, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” My answer was “Yeah, I just hope it isn’t an onrushing train.” Old Doc would’ve been proud me.
Moral of the story – If you’re going to have a “cool one” after a Little League game, make sure it’s in a plain brown wrapper, and tell the kids to bring their own damn beer.
J.J. Addingnuttin 