junior league baseball

i found myself walking out to the batter’s box with bases loaded, coach gives the signal for swing away (which i think was actually him twirling chest hair, mouth agape, if i remember correctly). the signals were always more of a distraction than anything else, and though on that hot sunday afternoon in boca raton i had no trouble understanding the horrendously disgusting and confusing signals being thrown my way, i lacked the confidence to carry them out the way he intended. the last bit was the most crucial part, the way he, my coach, intended.

a little context would surely cue reader to my amped frustration on that day in boca raton.

to play little league ball in lantana a kid could not exceed 12 years of age. i hated this rule. i was completely out of control in lantana’s little league. i was so thoroughly dependable on a number of counts. i could steal any base anytime. monsters eat people and cars, i ate stolen bases. i hit through the gaps between in-fielders so consistently i made their team mom’s shake maniacally- a team mom is a mom who has nothing else to do, is overprotective of her child, or loves baseball but lacks coaching skills, or a mom who wants to have an affair with the coach. defense, a no brainer, i played every position- i pitched, i caught, short-stop, center field, no shit i was unstoppable, a legend among lantana little league baseball playing adolescents. but the day i turned 13 my entire life changed. i was forced to retire from the little leagues and join all the other 13 and 14 year olds in junior league. tryouts were horrendous. i was small. i didn’t have a gold necklace, no sweat bands, no big-barrel bat, no hair under my arms. goodness it was another world. i kept looking over my shoulder, back at the old world, the little league field where i reigned supreme, wishing i could trot back there, hop the fence, and re-take my throne. i couldn’t. i got picked up by the mariners, coached by bob brackis (who was married to beverly brackis, and together they owned the boca based towing company known as b&b tow yo butt anywhere ). bob was the italian father of bobby brackis, also italian, 13 years old, and played my position and though he also hadn’t hit puberty yet and was a good deal shorter than myself, he had a tow-truck driver for a father which meant he had shoulders like a logger and could swear like the godfather. he and i were apparently the only two who hadn’t grown like all the other boys did in the off-season but somehow i just knew that he’d would be playing short and i’d be on the bench. i thought correctly.

down florida drive lived a buddy of mine, vaughn parker. he was slick on the diamond as well as with the middle school girls (i know because when we were on the diamond he would tell me they were always calling him after school). he slapped line drives and he was fast, had a good arm so he pitched and batted whenever he wanted. being his parents were divorced and he an only child, he received anything he wanted from his father...anything, bats, gloves, batting gloves. he got hooked up so often i received some pretty sweet hand me downs. but his father was cool though, he drove a big truck and smoked marlboros like bob brackis did, but he thought me worthy to ride inside the cabin of his truck whereas bob thought of me on par with one of his pornographic mud-flaps.

vaughn's dad and bob brackis started a traveling baseball team, and based on my little league street cred alone they asked me to join. we were the d-a-w-g-s, dawgs. we played in weekend tournaments all over the state and kicked ass. we were promised professional baseball careers if we could just kick enough ass. and i was one of the smaller boys still but, i don’t know, somehow playing with vaughn, and riding to practice in the back of his dad’s smokey pre-quad cab chevy truck made me enjoy baseball again even if i could no longer play short-stop or confidently stand in the batters box.

back to the day at hand...

who knows why but i found myself walking out to the batter’s box with two outs and bases loaded. i watched vaughn parker's dad down the 3rd base line nodding his head at me, twirling chest hair like a mad man. i stepped inside the box, took a strike, stepped one foot out of the box, and did something i’d never done previously. i called a timeout. coach tilted his stern coaching face as if his entire universe had just downshifted without much clutch, each step i took was a brash grinding of gears. i trotted down the third base line towards coach to share a plan, one i had just wipped up when i should have been swinging my bat. he knelt and with, marlboro and morning breath pervading into late afternoon boca raton air he asked,
“uhh, what’s the deal, wha-what’s...the deal?”
“i’m going to bunt.”
“what?”
“have the others run, i’m going to bunt,” i explained.

his initial reactions were confused. but the longer he looked at my pre-pubescent face he knew i lacked every strand of confidence needed to hit the ball. he coupled that understanding with my cast-iron compromise of baseball stratagem (bunting with bases loaded and two outs isn’t common). he gripped and scratched the back of his neck with his left hand and started pointing at me with a wagging right pointer. he rolled with my plan and threw a few discrete signals to the boys on base. i walked back and knew what i had to do. if i went for the bunt down third, the guy coming home is done- he’ll be strangled by the simple 2-1 scoop, easy underhand from pitcher to catcher, inning over. but, i poke it down the first base line a ways the pitcher will go for it, and being he’s right handed he’ll have to made a crazy turn to make the 2-1 so he’ll go to first with it making the out to end the inning (x-factor- he doesn’t know how ridiculously fast i am). plus, if i poke it far enough the first baseman will also confusedly try to field the bunt as well.

play resumed, as planned the runners left before the pitch was released. i pivoted my toes and set the angle of my bat for a text book first-base-line bunt. i got my bat on the ball, it stayed in play but it sprang left instead of right. i watched it as i ran figuring the pitcher’d tag vaughn who was running home. but vaughn was nearly home. then he was sliding into home. the pitcher hesitated. he had pumped the throw home but then realized he’d better try to get me for the 2-3 sure out. i was but two strides off first. he rushed, gunned the throw and overshot the first baseman. the right fielder was behind him and after a few seconds tracked it down and threw home to hopefully stop the bleeding. our second runner was already in the dugout and the guy who was on first was barreling for the plate. the ball joined the confluence of runner and catcher just in time but the runner slid very heavily into the catcher. the catcher fell over backwards and the ball was flung into the backstop. by this point i was rounding third with coach parker doing cracked out signals all the while. the catcher gathered himself, threw off his mask and scrambled for the loose ball. it was too late. if vaughn was too fast i was way too damn fast. i stomped the plate, picked up the bat and walked back to the dugout. my team (my fellow dawgs) the stands, and coach parker were stupified with cheers, laughter, and an overwhelming upsurge of high fives. an absolutely unanimous balls to the wall uproar, the stands went psycho ape for sure. it wasn’t the final inning or anything but those runs were game winners for sure. my grand slam bunt won the game. holy crap.