Baseball stories of your childhood

[cardsagain74]

Thanks Trent. My favorite part of yours is your son innocently asking if his homer will make the TV news

You sound like the type of dad who stays totally supportive without putting pressure on a child. Mine was the same way. BUT, I did enough of that to myself for everyone. Case in point...

Epilogue to that story: when it came to remembering that season, the one thorn in my side used to be feeling like I let the team down at the plate in the championship game. Even though I had a solid start on the mound that day, my mind would zero in more on those at bats.

Then about 5 years ago, I found that season's old scorebook and looked again at what happened that day. In my four plate appearances, I walked the first three times up. Then I popped out in the bottom of the 5th, but the game was already well decided by then (so it didn't matter).

So the reality was that all of my relevant plate appearances in that game actually helped our case slightly. But my mind had always framed it the opposite way.

That was how competitive I was and how badly I wanted to excel back then (and how rough that could make me on myself!)

[whitehse]

What a great idea for a thread.

I played several years of minor league (the year before Little League), Little League, Pony, Colt and Babe Ruth league and had some incredible times as I grew and learned to embrace the nuances of the game I had already grown to love. My dad coached many of the teams I was on but for the four years of Little League I had a coach that was good at judging talent in terms of where players should be playing and getting the most out of their ability. Being the big kid my dad stuck me behind the plate and that is where I started my early career but since I was also the tallest kid on the team my new coach decided I needed to be at first base. I loved the new position and found it was great to leave the field after a hard fought game without the myriad of bruises and occasional broken fingers one gets why wearing the tools of ignorance. I had broken three fingers behind the plate in separate games and to this day the digits on my right hand can to the Spock from Star Trek hand signal better than Leonard Nimoy could have done.

It was this same coach who put all the other pieces in the correct place and our team just seemed to run like a well-oiled machine. Our middle infield had two awesome glove men who barely missed a grounder hit anywhere near them. In addition to being an awesome fielder, I admired our shortstop for his ability to form and wear his hat just like a major leaguer would wear it. No bends on the brim and dirty, sweat stained hat bands for him as his hat was always perfect.

Our star pitcher was a kid who had those boyishly good looks that all the girls fell for and he had the attitude that one would expect from someone who had a posse of girls following him everywhere. His attitude was child like when he didn’t get the calls he felt he should and would even cost us a game a few years later in a tournament we were on track to win. But it was really fun to be playing in front of a bunch of girls who were there to not only see Alan pitch but flirt with the rest of us as well.

Our left and center fielders would run like deer and they had to as our week spot was right field and was usually manned by the one kid on the team that was more interested in looking at the butterflies that hung around the flowers beyond the outfield fence than chasing baseballs.

This team was at the top of the standings all season but we were running neck and neck with one other team in the league that seemed to be also in the midst of their season of destiny and the championship was all going to come down to one last and final game. While I can no longer remember details of that game and if I went 0 for 4 or had four hits that day but what I do remember is the final out. I remember seeing the batter tap a grounder to our short stop with the awesome hat, who fielded the ball cleanly and threw it my way in an effort to get the batter for the final out. That final play has run through my brain in slow motion for better than forty years now and I can still see the ball leaving the hand of the shortstop followed by a puff of dirt he had scooped up right behind the now dingy baseball. I can still see and sometimes I swear I can feel the ball smack right into the pocket of my red, off brand baseball glove which my dad had purchased a year earlier and was being held together with shoe laces and a piece of clothesline. I can hear the smack of leather on leather and remember the realization that I had just caught the ball, the game was over and we were now the champions. Just like so many big leaguers who I had watched with the World Series, I am my teammates all jumped straight up with our fists in the air and made our way to the growing dog pile on the mound, alternately laughing and crying as we basked in the moment.

We didn’t get a huge flashy ring for our efforts but we did get an ice cream social held in our honor and each of us was awarded an incredibly large trophy to remember the season by. I cannot speak for any of my teammates from that team but that single season and that last game were some of the greatest moments in sports I have ever experienced and the memory of that day and most notably, the final out, sits queued up on the video player of my mind, ready to be played at a moments notice.

[cardsagain74]

Whitehse, I love it. Plenty of parallels there, but funny you mention the ice cream thing. I left out this part of the season in my story: early on, one of the parents started taking the whole team to Dairy Queen after each game. Then that grew into a promise to take us after every win (which, let's face it, was probably even more motivation to 8-9 year olds than winning the game). So that guy ended up spending a lot of money on ice cream that year

The other thing that stands out is you celebrating your Little League title on the field. Sadly, no one really won the league on the field during my LL years. There was a regular season champion, and then a post season tournament. But no one considered the tournament winner to be the league champ. So it was just sorta vague, and nothing was celebrated on the field or officially crowned as simply winning the title that year.

That was the only hole in my LL experience, though. And that time is where my other story comes from. Maybe I'll post it too if this gets much more traction here

[packs]

I have a summer birthday so for whatever reason it worked out in my town's little league that I would get lumped in with kids older than me all the time. Anyway, there was this kid named Ryan who was HUGE for a 13 year old and threw what seemed like 100 at the time.

Nobody liked facing Ryan. One of my clearest memories from little league is when my team played Ryan's and they had Ryan on the mound. I was in the on deck circle and this kid named Guy was at the plate. Ryan threw his heater and nailed Guy right in the middle of his back. SPLAT! Guy went down, got up to head to first, and collapsed again. An ambulance came and took Guy away.

The game continued. Now I had to hit! After a kid just got taken away in an ambulance!

Well, I think Ryan scared himself because he let up on his pitch to me and I smacked a single. Might have been the only hit he gave up that day.

[drcy]

In Little League, I split my pants stealing base. I also caught a fly ball but the glove fell off my hand (Does it still count?)

[Snapolit1]

When I was like 12 my friend and I went to a game at Shea Stadium and decided to loiter at the players exit for a few hours after the game ended. Missed the last train home and had to panhandle -- as 12 year old suburban kids -- to get money for the subway to get to the Jamaica train station. That was interesting. I remember the first player to come out was Davey Lopes of the Dodgers and HE WAS SMOKING A CIGARETTE!!!! What? What? My 12 year old brain couldn't comprehend it. He was nice to us ("Hey kids, sorry can't stop . . .need to meet someone for dinner . . ." BUT HE WAS SMOKING A BUTT. Never dawned on me that a professional athlete could smoke.

[cesarcap]

Great thread. I didn't realize that LL was cancelled. Man, I feel so bad for these 11-13 yr olds.

In 2017, I fell snowboarding and had to get rotary cuff surgery. I was a rec coach of my 11 yr old's team and ran the town's summer sandlot program. But because I couldn't drive (my Jeep is a manual) my father in law had to drive us and my 13 yr old to all the practices and games. And oh, both did travel baseball...

We had the best spring and summer together. My father in law was a Navy doctor and we heard some awesome stories in the car rides. Practices were actually became fun when the kids had to help out more : )

Both sons made their respective Little League teams and played well. My younger son's team became rec champs that season (in spite of my coaching). My older son's 13/14 Junior League team had a great run, became NY state champions, but lost in the East Regional Finals--they were one game away from making the Junior League Little League World Series.