Sunday finally arrived, the day of our next playoff game in the consolation bracket. We were facing a team that we played before; they did beat us, but it was a really good game. I liked our chances heading into this matchup, having all of our pitchers available, except one. The problem was: would we have enough players?
Sunday morning was touch and go; we had 4 kids confirmed NO and 7 kids confirmed YES. There were 2 kids remaining. The first kid I couldn’t get in touch with; the second kid was in a travel tournament, and wouldn’t know if he would attend until the last minute. Great, just great… As I tried to follow up with them, and give a heads up to the commish that we may need a “call up” to get to 9 players, I thought about back in the day. There was this thing at the Boys Club called Group Teams; basically, it meant you played many different sports. I was the captain; our team name was the Ski Ballers… my nickname was Ski, and kids added the Ball (like Skee-Ball), so Ski Ballers made sense. Anyways, as team captain, I would find myself walking through the neighborhood picking up each kid from our team to ensure we had enough to play; it’s hilarious thinking back on that. I would go door to door basically; I remember one in particular. The kid peeks out in a towel, just getting out of the bath; his mother told us to come in. So we did, and we sat there, watching Nightmare on Elm Street, while we waited for him to get ready. I didn’t have to do this for every game, but there were a few, and the group going door to door got bigger and bigger as we picked up each teammate. Then, right before the game started, we’d walk in with our whole team… I loved those Boys Club days…
The door to door was being done on Team Snap, which is a really great way to communicate; there were text messages and phone calls too. About 3 hours before the game, we finally had commitments from the other 2 players; we had our 9… yes! The travel kid couldn’t pitch, and the other kid that just confirmed just came back from the Ozarks, spending 6 or so hours in the car, telling me his back was hurting a bit; we went with another one of our best pitchers to start. He wasn’t on his A game; he wasn’t necessarily walking guys, but he had better appearances. The other team was full of kids swinging the bats, and it paid off. There were many “seeing-eye” singles… just between two of our players, just over the infielders’ heads… it started to feel like one of those games. When I told our kid at 2B to move over a couple steps to his left, and the ball went just to his right to score 2 runs… well… Then with 1st and 3rd and 1 out, I send our kid from first, only to have our kid at bat line one to their kid at 1B… easiest double play you’ll ever see. Yes, it kind of went like that.
Still, we had our chances. We had kids on base, but couldn’t get that big hit or two. My son came in and pitched the 2nd half of the game. Although he did make his first error in the field all year in this game, he only gave up 2 runs in the last 3 innings, giving us a chance to comeback; we didn’t though. 8-4 was the final; our season is over.
I’m sure I’ll talk a bit more about this, but it was a blast. I loved coaching the kids, and of course, my son. It was the first spring/summer league team I had coached since pre-Covid. Although it didn’t go well, per our record and finish, it didn’t matter. Our team was better than our record indicated, but either way, I had a ton of fun; I think the kids did too. On to the next sport…
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