A Change of Pace

A very sexy, newish reader came across the following post that I had written about a year ago.

She asked that I post it again because she really liked it, and thought those who haven't read yet, would as well.

So not being able to deny the requests of a sexy woman, here is the post about my four years playing Little League baseball, although it is really a story about much more than that.

Our team was looked upon as a team of troublemakers, punks…an affront to upper-middle class sensibilities..

Our best pitcher, Goody, would unintentionally, yet quite frequently hit the opposing batters.

When running the bases we would never slide on a close play; we would plow into the kid that was trying to tag us out.

During the game, expletives freely flew from our pre-teen mouths. Even our coach would routinely get ejected for arguing with the ump.

In addition to our less than gracious manner, the majority of our players couldn’t hit well, field the ball, or run very fast.

In spite of our lack of skills, we were playing baseball…the way it was intended to be played. Of course how we played only reinforced the perceptions of the other parents as to who we were.

The league in which we played was composed almost entirely of kids from well-to-do white families who all claimed to have had ancestors aboard the Mayflower.

Our team was made up of poor and middle class white trash and yes, Blacks!! Even our coach…Black!! Oh the humanity!!

Our fathers weren’t doctors, lawyers, and bankers. We were the sons and even the daughter (Brooke) of working class stiffs who got uppity and had moved to the “Pleasant Valley Sunday” end of town.

It was the Summer of ‘74 and the unspoken prejudices of an “integrated” society were being felt…race and class issues, taking the field along with us.

It wasn’t really the players on the other teams that were the jerks. It was, of course, their parents.

Their anal retentive dads wearing cashmere in 90 degree heat and sporting mid-70s state of the art LCD watches would view the game while their frigid wives would whine that Little Johnny wasn’t playing enough.

And of course if Little Johnny did get to play, they would complain to the league that we were being too rough because Little Johnny got run over by one of us as we tried to score.

The truth was, that those parents just didn’t like who we were, or what we were…

But, even though we were young, we knew what was going on and we reveled in it. We put it right back in the faces of those pretentious phonies.

Our catcher, Biscuit, who happened to be one of our black players, would mimic the South African Khoi-Khoin clicking language as the batter stood in the box waiting for the pitch.

Instead of saying “Hey Batter, Batter” our team would murmur “Mama’s Boy, Got No Bat”.

Our plowing into their basemen got harder, and our amusement with the “Pod Parents” became much more noticeable.

We were the Little Rascals on Meth.

We slowly, yet steadily improved over those four years. We won three games the first year, four the next, and six the third year. All the while enduring the scorn of the “pretty people”.

In our last year together, Goody, managed to hit fewer batters and throw more strikes.

Brooke caught every fly ball near her, and ran the bases like a deer. Biscuit’s tongue was not the only thing clacking, as he sent more than a couple of fastballs over the fence.

And me, I batted .542 that season, and we went 13-3.

We had been so bad for so long and now we were league champions, and when the final out had come, our parents stood and clapped, but the best thing was…so did all of the others.

That was 30 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.

We were a group of kids who overcame a lack of skills and turned racial and class prejudices into a motivational tool.

We avoided turning any anger we felt inward, and instead, put it out there in the form of playground humor and a nicely turned double play.

In the end, not only did we win…Everybody won.

And there you have it.

I hope you come back tomorrow for a rock n rollin’ Half Nekkid Thursday.

Cheers!!