The Indians had clinched the first half, three games in front of the second-place team. The Red Sox were at the bottom, having only won a single game. JJ had turned down multiple contract offers from Cleveland. I jest! The unauthorized use of the protective cup for the purpose of drinking Gatorade or any other substance was deemed inappropriate and frowned upon by our illustrious league Board of Directors. Once the word got out about the Red Sox little prank, the other teams decided that this was singularly the most appropriate use of this particular type of device, and unfortunately the concept spread to the minor league as well. Everybody was drinking something from their protective cups.
The fable of the Dodgers using the jockstrap as a slingshot, or worse, was revived and reenacted a number of times creating another dilemma for the President. The ”Wild Bunch” was notified that there will be no more dried peas allowed in any of the dugouts. This last decision irritated me because it was going to reduce the yield of fresh peas next spring. Clearly, the Board of Directors had no sense of humor! There was no mention of expectoration, but I think there were hopes that the Indians would come down with multiple cases of the “dry mouth syndrome.” And finally, my worst nightmare, Miss Congeniality was now a member of the Board. The Gods are frowning on me!
The Wild Bunch, the tribe, otherwise known as the Indians, were now known as those “rather rowdy kids” that just kept winning. We lost one 11-year-old to a broken arm and had to draft a 10-year-old because it was mandated. He was a good, hard-working kid, but his skill set was extremely limited, and he was relegated to becoming a two inning player. The problem was that his father had been a college and minor-league baseball player in his youth and his vicarious expectations for its son’s performance exceeded his kid’s level of interest, at this particular time. Early on, I got a lot of advice and I invited him to become an assistant coach. Naturally, he was too busy. Coincidentally, we both worked for the same company, but did not know each other. I did some checking and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t clear what he was too busy doing.
“Prima” was coming through like gangbusters and I had him batting in the fifth spot. In the first four games he hit five home runs, four of which went over the right-field fence. Granted, it was a short fence, but still pretty impressive stuff. After that, the other teams really wouldn’t pitch to him if there were runners on base. He was starting to get frustrated and I told him that if the ball was close, go ahead and take a shot at it, and I didn’t really care if he struck out swinging. He did, and he hit some balls that were beyond me how he could’ve reached them, let alone hit it, but he did. He and JJ were probably the best hitters in the league.
It turned out “Prima” and Scooter had become best friends and lived relatively close to each other. He was teaching Scooter how to ride his motorcycle and I don’t mean motor bike, either. It was a small one, but no question was a real motorcycle. I would suspect that Scooters mom, Miss Congeniality, was totally oblivious to this activity, but of course she was probably too busy developing new schemes to harass me. Don’t call me paranoid just because the whole world is after me.
The Indians had a few close games, but for the most part were winning by five and six runs. I was starting to play my two-inning players – more, if in fact we were up more than five runs. On a couple of occasions we started throwing the ball all over the place and came close to losing, but the team came through. The league had a rule I really hated, which was simply that if a team was up by more than 10 runs at the end of the fourth inning, then the game would be called. We had a couple of games like that. Maybe it was the humane thing to do, but I didn’t think that was fair to the other team. I had seen some awfully strange things happen when these kids got to playing the other game called “let’s boot the ball around, all over the field.” I was a firm believer in “It ain’t over, till it’s over.”
The Indians didn’t lose a game in the entire second half. The last game was against the Red Sox, who were still at the bottom of the pile and had lost all but two games. Miss Congeniality was nowhere in sight. She was probably at home tending to her cauldron. “Help me! Help me! I’m melting! Oh my, I’m melting!” I started all my second-tier players and let “Prima” pitch the first three innings, which he had been pestering me to do for most of the season. He walked seven guys, hit two and I went out to him, and got the ball, sending him out to center-field. He was laughing and his comment was “I guess I need to work on my pitching.” My comment was, “Don’t give up your day job!” He could hit, but he sure couldn’t pitch.
The Indians won it all, of course, and there was joy in Mudville that night. The next weekend was trophy presentations time, and the naming of the 15 league All-Stars, who would represent our franchise in the regional tournament. Nine Indians made the All-Stars and by tradition, the winning manager had to coach the team. Great! I was beginning to wonder what the inter-league rules were about “a cold one before the game, during the game and after the game.” I was less than sanguine about this dubious distinction of going to get humiliated by some of these other regional teams. Like I said in my other story, from what I had seen the previous year, it seemed to me these other teams were playing a different game. Scooter was the only Red Sox player to make the All-Stars. I didn’t see Miss Congeniality, his mom, at the presentations and had to assume that she had fallen into her cauldron. Maybe her husband pushed her!
We had one week to get this team prepared, and I got the help of two of the other managers in our league. We practiced for two hours for four days, and had pretty well solidified starters versus the marginal players. Scooter was a starter because he had really perfected the “chop,” and was without a doubt the fastest runner on the team. His fielding was erratic so we stuck him in right field. We had five competent pitchers and a fairly solid infield. We still had trouble with the double play. I wasn’t optimistic about our proficiencies, but felt we would put up a good showing.
One of these kids, who was a marginal player and soon to be relegated as a two-inning player, was a Russian émigré. One of the many rules that exist in Little League is a requirement for a valid copy of the player’s birth certificate. All the kids brought copies, with the exception of Vladimir. His family gave him a copy of his Russian passport. I thought this was fine and submitted it with all the other paperwork to the regional league officials. They rejected the passport, and sent a note saying I had to have copy of the birth certificate. I explained this to the kid and told him to get his parents to give me a copy of his birth certificate, and to me it didn’t matter if it was in Russian or not because as far as I was concerned, that was a league problem, not mine.
The next practice Vladimir’s father showed up. He’s about 5-foot-nine and looks like a small bear. He came up to me waving copies of the passport and clearly was a little agitated. I tried to explain to him the rules, but he wasn’t buying it. He basically told me that I had to accept this and I told him it was not my decision. At that point, he tore the papers up into little pieces and threw them in my face with some comments in Russian that I was sure had something to do with my mother being unmarried and somewhat solicitous. I went ballistic! Fortuitously, two of the other coaches were right there and got in between me and this Russian maniac.
He left – we never got a birth certificate and under the circumstances we could not allow Vladimir to play. I felt bad for the kid, but at the same time was somewhat incensed at this altercation. Fortunately, my co-coaches interceded before I attempted to deck this guy on the spot. He was probably a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion and would’ve broken my back in short order. I could see the headlines now, ”Little League coach assaults Russian Consulate member, creating an international incident! The Russian Foreign Office has expressed its concern and has demanded an explanation and an apology from our Secretary of State.” My assessment of the situation was, the Cold War is not quite over.
As I’ve said before, the kids are great, but sometimes the parents really leave a lot to be desired, which is the same as politely saying some really suck. Sorry about that! Oh well, there goes my PG-13 rating, violence and vulgar words causing my downfall. Would you believe that I later got letter from a local attorney, who I knew, citing the potential actions that this guy was contemplating.
The lawyer involved belonged to the same tennis club that I did, and we would occasionally play against each other. I looked at the schedule one day and saw that we were going to be competing in a doubles tournament. I took his letter and wrote the following comment “expletive deleted you. Nasty letter to follow.” I slipped it in an envelope and handed it to him after we had cleaned their clock. I had real trouble believing he didn’t tell his client to take a hike, but I rather imagine his fee was close to couple grand. Considering that, I came to the conclusion that I got the better of the Russian bear. I don’t think I want to go to Russia though, because I’m sure I’m on the KGB hit list.
So putting that incident out of my mind and concentrating on the upcoming potential debacle, we continued practicing. There were no dry peas, no spitting contests and a solid degree of intensity on the part of our players. Our first game was on a Friday and wonder of wonders, we prevailed by three runs. At that point, I began looking around for three wise men coming from the East, and wondering what was next. We played that Saturday, and once again won by three runs. I was elated, however was quite sure that Gabriel was right around the corner ready to blow his horn.
With these two wins, we now moved to a four team playoff the following weekend in the elimination playoffs. We lost the first two games and were history. The good news is that was farther than any other previous team from our franchise had ever succeeded to. The kids all got a little trophy and a medal indicating how far they had gone. They all began a bunch of war whoops and chants that rather perplexed the league officials. They began their traditional after-game war dance. We were asked to leave. A Wild Bunch to the bitter end.
This was my final game for the boys and Little League. I was leaving the company that I had been with for the past five years to go become a bigger fish in a smaller pond. And based on my new responsibilities, I knew full well that my Little League management days were over. The effervescent Indians went on to win the whole shebang the following year, and actually I assumed it was because of my tenacious training regime and expertise.
Unfortunately, I did not hear from the Cleveland Indians ownership again. Later I’ll write a story about what happened to some of these kids in their later lives. It’s rather fascinating! As kind of a closing note, sometime after my active role, I heard from a friend that Miss Congeniality had run off with the Greek sailor and was now packing sardines in the Azores. I jest!
So this ended my Little League coaching career, or so I thought. Blue-eyes and another ex-college softball jock, if that’s appropriate, decided that the girls in our little town were being shortchanged and decided to form a girls Little League Senior Softball franchise. They did, and I was drafted to be one of the coaches, but by rule was not allowed to sit in the dugout for fear of possible contamination of these innocent 13- to 16-year-old young ladies. Right! This was a total female show, controlled by them and played by them and I considered it completely chauvinistic. But that’s a different story to be addressed at a later date.
Moral of the story – In situations like “Prima,” sometimes the obvious “ain’t” so obvious!
J.J. Addingnuttin 