From today's Times and News-Star
In
these pictures in the social section of the newspaper, they look like young men
in love: clean polo shirt, arm around a pretty girl, huge smile, and below, a
write-up about the day that will forever change their lives.
“Engaged
to be married.”
Whoa.
This is big-boy stuff.
But
to me, they still look and smell like the Little Leaguers they were when I
first met them. They still have dirt on their knees and they smell like wind
and dirt and Gatorade and leather. Some have baby fat. Soon, they would all
have nicknames.
My
biggest break from “coaching” Little League was I got to meet a lot of boys and
families I’d have never known otherwise. There’s regret from that time – I think
of things I’d have done differently and, with experience, better – but mostly I
smile and look at pictures or the baseballs I got these guys to sign and am
grateful that I got a chance to be on their team.
Now
it’s been a hard-to-believe nine summers since I last sat in the dugout of a
Little League game – on an upside-down bucket just outside New Iberia. In nine
more summers, some of these newlyweds are likely to have Little Leaguers of
their own.
Time
is the great mystery. It’s so uncaring that it’ll let your pitcher or your
center fielder grow up and get married when he should be showing up at
practice, with eye black on, a size 6 cleat, homework to do before bed at 9,
and a makeup game against the Reds Tuesday at 5:30.
The
first one got married two summers ago. Crazy. I didn’t worry because he was
about the most mature pre-teen I’d ever been around. One Fall Ball game he
looked at me in the dugout while we batted and said, his face smeared with
sweat and dirt and with a granddad’s disgust, “Coach Teddy, that man over there
just said some profanities.”
He
was 11.
The
most recent time I saw him, he was saying “I do” and clean as a pin.
Crazy.
Another
got married in June. Good man. He went with us on trips to play in Dr Pepper
Park in the shadow of The Ballpark at Arlington and his dad bought our “pitching
staff” mock turtleneck red sleeves one chilly October evening. Only 12 years
old, they looked like true baseball men out there.
Two
will get married this autumn. The best non-on-field memory I have of each is
food-related.
I
can’t use their names because that would be indiscreet. (Alex. And Taylor.)
Alex was fast as the wind, a trait that served both he and his teammates well
as he loved to go to the concession stand. During games. No telling how many
infield hits he legged out after leaving chili on the bat handle.
Once
I asked Taylor why he was even more happy than normal, on this certain day. “Because
it’s Bacon Night,” he said. “My mom fries a pound of bacon for us every
Thursday night.” How beautiful is that?
Baseball
and bacon. Can you beat it? And now these guys have someone to share both with,
someone who doesn’t smell like mud. Good for them. We’ve all come a long way
since that preseason practice when they were eight and I told them that by
league rules, they had to start wearing “protective cups,” and they looked at
me like I had bananas growing out of my ears. I promised them they’d thank me
later.
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