Crying in Baseball

Figures it'd be baseball would bring me back.

Not MLB—as one might expect, what with recent events (the As; dope; more dope; Pedro). Nope.

Little League. Specifically, the Western Regional Championships played in Waco, Texas, last Saturday and televised live on ESPN. Happily for me, I missed the first pitch, thrown out by Dubya (who shoulda stood in baseball, where he wasn’t so dangerous). I got to the game in the third inning, and they only play six, these little guys.

Funny thing: they’re little, all right, but they don’t play "little." The pitcher is throwing what looks remarkably like heat —and he’s 12 years old, 5’5", 135#. The beautiful Little League swing is beautiful in all the same ways as the beautiful MLB swing, and the sound of the ball on the sweet spot, and the trajectory of the ball—out of the park—are all the same. These 2/3- scale models throw as accurately, turn double plays as fast, and make as few errors (none that I saw), as the big boys.

The story develops: teams are Bryant, Arkansas vs. Lafayette, Louisiana. This is Bryant’s second straight year in the playoffs; they got snookered last year, so they’re super-double-determined, this year.

Their luck has been especially bad, though: while they were at a Rangers game on their way to Waco, all their equipment was stolen from the motel parking lot—all their bats, balls, cleats, helmets, 10 cases of Gatorade: everything, gone. When the good people of Bryant, Arkansas, hear about it (one assumes, right away), they instantly donate replacement Everything, which the Bryant Little League Commissioner loads up and drives like hell for Waco. He makes it in time. The boys play; they make it to the finals, which I am now watching and which the President of the United States showed up for (driving blithely past Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan and the other antiwar protesters outside the gates of his ranch), and threw out the first ball. Both teams are playing like pros now, though, no signs of nerves or fear or even much excitement.

But the boys of Bryant, Arkansas, are looking a little glum; they are almost shut out; then, in the 5^th inning, the leadoff batter hits a homer. The dugout erupts with delirious little boys jumping straight up in the air and all over each other—just like the big boys do. There is hope! This is baseball! Anything can happen!

But it doesn’t. Bryant loses. Six innings, it’s over, they lose 4-1, and I’m bouncing on my couch in California, yelling, "No! NO! Let ‘em play three more! They’ve got it in ‘em! Let ‘em do it!" But that doesn’t happen, of course. The little boys of Lafayette, Louisiana, scramble all over each other in a fountain of happiness—they’re going to Williamsport, PA, for the World Series!

And then the two teams line up for high-fives, and the looks on those faces—! Lafayette is gracious in victory, and Bryant almost stony in defeat. Almost, but not quite. Many of those little Bryant chins tremble; a few cheeks glisten with tears; nevertheless, they march in a straight line and do their high-fives just as if their hearts weren’t in smithereens.

I know, I know: it’s a learning experience. Losing is as important a lesson as winning—in some ways, more important, life being what it is for most of us. But it was excruciating, watching those little men of Bryant, Arkansas, learn that hard lesson. I wish I could give every one of them a hug.

Comments

[beth]

YES!! It's great to read your words and feel your huge heart in them, DocR! Welcome back.

[Coup de Vent]

Yeh, welcome back DR. Looking forward to following more of your wonderful observations.

[dale]

:-) not a lesson anyone misses out on though, is it? Life's got some things covered.

[J.T. Little]

I watched that game on ESPN, my team played against Bryant in the semi-finals of the Arkansas state tournament. Of course we lost 2-1 but the whole game Bryant never gave up. I was pitching a no-hitter going into the top of the 5th when Dylan Pritchett hit a blast over the center field fence. He marched around the bases and wow just to see him fly around those bases was amazing.