Little League Woes

I am really starting to like this “story of federalcheese” thing. It gives me an opportunity to reflect back on my childhood and ruminate immensely. My favorite part is not the completion of a post, but the deliberations on what to write about next. I don’t want to proceed out of my childhood too fast as there is so much to write about. My parents, my brothers, my triumphs, my follies, all provide such fodder for this site.

One of my favorite things in life is baseball. My father signed me up for little league when I was five, but I don’t remember much about it. As legend goes, the first ball that was thrown to me hit me square in the chest as I was never told about the act of putting one’s hands up to catch it, or at least, deflect it from slamming into you. You have to think about the intricacies of the game of baseball for young children. “I’m going to throw a hard, round object at your head, you try and catch it.” The whole situation is wrought with potential disaster, yet it happens everyday. Why, because baseball is the greatest thing invented by mankind since. . .well since a tart named Eve stole an apple and started the whole thing.

Little league was a minor aspect of my life until I reached the age of eleven. Sure, my minor league team had won the division the year before, but that was in the Minors. No, recognition only came from victories in the Majors and my team was the Cardinals. My mother’s boyfriend is a Dodger fan. Why, because his children played on the Dodgers while in little league, which I believe to be CRAZY. Yet, I still have a soft place in my heart for the Cardinals, because they represent the best times I had playing baseball as a child.

The Cardinals biggest rivals were, by far, the Rockets. They were notorious. They had a coaching staff of like TWELVE guys. They were the Yankees of little league. Young, zealous parents strived to have their kids on the Rockets. Uninformed, simple folk rooted for them solely because they won games. And the Cardinals were the team to bring them down. We had the team to do it too. Mike Debiasi at short, our ace in Richard Lear, the Josephsons, the Currans, we had it all. I had discovered a new position at catcher (which would later be the end of me due to genetically bad knees) and was having the time of my life. Everyone seemed impressed with my play behind the plate and I didn’t understand it. It was so easy for me and it took such little effort, but it was not to last. My father’s genes were to strike me down in the long run. But at the time, the world was within the Cardinal's grasp and all we had to do was take it.

It was not to be. The Cardinals and Rockets dominated the league. At the end of the season, we played one final game to determine the championship. Two evenly matched teams, dueling it out, a fight to the death, but extenuating circumstances took control. There was a controversial “runner interference” call, crushing the Cardinal’s momentum. Now, I can’t prove money was exchanged, but the call was BULLSHIT and any impartial fan there would agree. Twelve-year-olds shouldn’t have to witness such aberrations of justice, but we all grew up a bit that day. Nice guys don’t always win. That day was proof of that.

As children, we don’t know the full extent of defeat. That feeling doesn’t come until adulthood, hence our parent’s crushing depression following our loss. The kids on the team quickly moved on, several of us being selected to the All-Star team coached by the Rocket’s Manager Bob Beberg. I hate to admit this to the true Cardinal fans of the day, but I learned a lot from being on that all-star team. The Rocket's coaching staff was nothing but graceful and accomodating to me. Later, in college, some of my best friends were some of the very same kids on that infamous Rockets team.

What’s the moral of this story? Kids are resilient? Sports are inconsequential? No, the moral is that adults always screw things up and children should always remember that. Don’t make the same mistakes our parents made. Organize and make the bribes before the other team can.