20 days, 1 hour, 6 minutes until pitchers and catchers report. I can smell it. Aside from the hot stove reports and trade rumors, my boys enable me to get a jump on the baseball season through little league try outs. Last year was a dream as I got to manage, was able to draft both of my boys on the same team, and we were the DODGERS! It doesn't get better than that. This year with fewer teams I am not managing, but hope springs eternal to still coach. On Saturday was the first day of tryouts, and with both Jonathan and Caleb trying out at different times enabled me to watch for a couple of hours. They both looked pretty good, they love to play. Jonathan has played baseball every season since he was 5 years old, and now at age 11 my lefty is at the level where I first entered into little league baseball.
Both my brothers Randy and Jason played baseball for many years, until at least age 12/13. I have always had a love for baseball, I would go with dad on occasion to Dodger games, listen to Vin Scully on the radio on Saturdays in the back yard, I would collect cards, play Superstar Baseball card and dice game hours on end, and track statistics. But I didn't play baseball much as a kid except in the street. The main culprits were various injuries, the primary one being a chipped piece of bone in my leg that wrapped in the muscle that had a type of tumor on it, osteo-something or another. The surgery to take it out left me in a full leg cast for 4-6 months in the 5th grade with 50 or so stiches in a scar that ran up the outside of my entire upper thigh of the right leg. I learned how to shoot a basketball on crutches and pretended to shoot people with a crutch every day at school as I sat against a wall during recess.
My first shot at playing organized ball was age 11 in Huntington Valley LL for the Minor A A's. That was kind of late to be starting, as many kids retired from baseball at that age. I was a little squirt and in the lower half of the team in skill. It was a great team as I remember because we won the championship and went on to play in a tournament for a few rounds. One of the few moments I remember of that season was when I was playing left field with 2 outs in the bottom of the last inning, and the opposition's tying & winning runs on base. The batter hit a shallow fly to short left field and I came racing in. Even though I called for the ball, our shortstop came out (typical ball-hog skilled kid) to try for it. We collided, popped heads, and I was knocked cold. When I came to, lying on my back, I had the ball cradled in my glove and had preserved the victory!
I went to play on the Majors level the next season, where my lack of skill was evident as I failed to get a hit for the entire first half of the season. My coach Don Crosby had faith in me, and would give me opportunities to succeed. I remember the day the "hit" happened. I recall closing my eyes as I swung and somehow connected to rip a double to the right-center fence. Everyone knew how much this meant as there was literally a standing ovation, they stopped the game and the coach came out to shake my hand at second base. I remember seeing how proud my dad was as he clapped and had a HUGE grin (he had told me that he should stop coming to my games because he thought he was bad luck for me). I could hardly see as I stood there on second base and just cried. I got game ball of course.
My last year playing was age 13, called senior minors. It wasn't much fun as my lack of skill was more evident. I played 3rd base and could only make the throw to first on a bounce. My coach yelled at us, we had major team disharmony, and it wasn't fun. My mom supported the team by sitting in her parked car where she could see, and honked in proxy for applause. I did make the 13-year old all-star team, but only by virtue of the fact that I was one of only two 13-year olds on the team and you had to have two from each team on all-stars. My fever for playing returned (and skill level greatly increased) only as a young adult in my glory softball playing days. My boys are not superstars, but they can hold their own. Jonathan has sometimes worried about his skill and ability, but he is leaps and bounds ahead of me as he will play this year at the age when I first put on a uniform.
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