Your Little League story

Everybody who put on a uniform worn by countless other third graders with a local business' name stitched on the back has one.

I'll give you two: My own, and one from a friend, because it's just just so damn perfect.

Mine: I was second baseman for Smith's Zenith Appliances. The manager was an asshole, and our team sucked. In the last game, which the manager desperately wanted to win, he had to stick my friend Eric in because of league rules. Eric was a big, clumsy kid who didn't have a competitive bone in his body--which was funny, because his dad was a former Olympic wrestler.

Anyway, to cut it short: Pop fly, if Eric caught it we would win, but he dropped it and the other team scored and won. The coach, being the asshole that he was, chewed Eric out. Eric, being a softy, was reduced to tears. A freakin' third grader, bearing the brunt of this jerkoff's failed life. That was my last Little League season.

My friend's: His dad was a local legend. High school hero, got a taste of the Show, but ended up in Tennessee to run a road building business. It was up to his son to carry on the torch, he never let his son forget it, and his son hated it.

So one day, when my friend was playing outfield, a batter smacked one out of the park. My buddy didn't really have a shot at snagging it, but he heard his dad cursing at him from the bleachers. So, because somebody had to get the ball, my friend jumped over the wall, then decided to keep running, and ran all the way home, a big, gleaming middle finger to his dad in front of two teams and a bleacher full of spectators.

Yours?

but man, I loved to play. Drove my coach nuts, I wouldn't go away. I played right field for Casey's General Store.

Coach was a turd. His kid was a pretty good athlete and played catcher on our team, so coach had no time nor patience for anyone not up to snuff. I can't ever remember him coaching me at all, really, only shuffling myself and a couple other marginal players off to the side to play pepper. The assistant was a pretty decent guy, though.

Everybody knew to come in on me, I couldn't hit to save my life. Last game, I hit one that bounced off the fence, over everybody's head. Made my season.

Honestly, without sounding like a Garrison Keillor story, one of my favorite memories from being a kid was riding my bike home from baseball games, after getting a 'suicide' slushy from the concession stand. Couldn't play, didn't care...I was loving it.

Is that where you mix all the flavors? We called it 'graveyard.'

And jeebus bless the assistant coaches. The assistant for my Smith's Zenith team looked like Johnny Fever with long hair, and took the time to pull each kid aside at the season-end Shakey's Pizza feed to tell them what good things they did, statistically.

He may have been stoned, but that makes it even better.

I was just talking with a guy tonight about how kids are too organized nowadays, how as kids we just hung with the neighborhood kids and did our own ballgames (almost always needing ghost runners) and then we laughed at the washed up assholes who turned into nothing at all in their adult lives who make their children's lives hell by forcing the kids to be the sports heroes that they, the fathers, could never achieve.

So, anyway, I don't have any little league stories to tell. I was always appalled by it, and never had any desire to join in. A neighbor kid did make it to the local Babe Ruth league, though. I have no idea whether that actually is impressive or not, but it sure seemed to impress the people around us, including my parents.

God bless my dad for his bitter disappointment that I didn't like organized sports, and preferred drama and music instead, who never ever spoke ill of me for not doing the activities he would have preferred. (which is not to say that my dad would have been one of the failed loser asshole dads, he wouldn't have been at all - would likely have been walking around proudly punching the assholes until they cried like babies; he just had an only son who shared almost no interests with him, except math, the Marx Brothers, Looney Tunes, and ice cream).

always seemed to be the Hey-We-Hit-Puberty-Before-The-Rest-Of-You-Punks league

My Dad coached or was an assistant coach on a couple of my Little League teams, and when I got older, I realized how uninterested he was in baseball and only coached (and put up with parents) because of me. He's a great guy.

Summer, 1989:I was the 5th inning, and we were losing by over 20 runs. I was sitting on the bench with our team out in the field. The manager decided to put the reserve players in and give them some playing time. There was a play at the plate and the umpire called the opposing team's baserunner safe. I leaped up from my seat on the bench and screamed "BULLSHIT!". Then the ump turned around and yelled at me "You're out of the game!". So I had to sit out the remaining inning in the stands. Embarassing.

And the following year was my last in baseball.

In a little league football game once. Hit him so hard he broke 3 ribs.

My passion for playing football ebbed away after that.

Which is odd, because I was never more than four or five years older than the players I helped my dad coach. I even ended up playing with a few of them my senior year of high school... now that was weird. :)

I coached the pitchers, because as my dad (the head coach of the team) would readily admit, he didn't know jack about pitching. Seeing as I pitched sometimes for my high school team, and seemed to have a basic feel for what pitching mechanics were, I became his pitching coach. This meant that, after a long practice with my high school team, I immediately went to go help him with his little league team.

Surprisingly, the pitchers turned out to be both reasonably good and not needing arm repair (the bigger of the two victories IMO, given the new trend of Little League pitcher abuse). I must have done something right... :)

(Getting in late on this subject one but just had to relate mine.)

1978-As one of those kids that got shuffled into the outfield for the required 4 innings, I once tried to organize the others. My main contention was that EVERYONE should be playing EVERY position, or at least be learning how to play. I saw no use in putting the best kids in the infield and the worst in the outfield because then, you had no chance of becoming a more well-rounded player.

(I have to admit at this point that part of my efforts arose from my injured pride at being pooled with the "bad kids." See, I had just had my first year of organized football and excelled at quarterback on an undefeated team. So I thought I was pretty hot stuff. Little League dispelled some of that arrogance.)

My idea was to get all six or seven us the outfielders to stand in solidarity against the coach and demand some equal playing time at different positions. All the guys agreed and I drafted a letter and delivered it to the coach. Sadly, everyone backed down and accused me of misusing their names. I had to crawl back to the team where my lack of popularity was then magnified.

That was my last real attempt to organize people and I learned a sad lesson on the fear and cowardice of my fellow man.

I played third base. I hit with decent power but was very slow. My biggest thrill was a defensive play in the championship game. I threw out the tying run at home plate the title game and we won.

My dad didn't approve of Little League because of the behavior of coaches and parents he had seen, but by 6th grade, he thought i was old enough to deal with it, and i went out for the school team.

Of course, the others with Little League and Colt League experience assured me that i wasn't going to make the team, but i figured what the heck!

So, i tried out and after the first three practices, my name WAS NOT on the cut list! Next cuts! Still not on there. I made the team.

The coach told me he wanted me to play centerfield and would have two of us do that each game. The other kid was the assistant coach's son (and a friend of mine) so no complaints from either of us. But, the coaches (including my friend's dad) told me, "We can teach you to hit a curve ball, and we can teach you fundamentals, but we can't teach fast!" By the end of the year, and then through all 7th and 8th grade, i was the centerfielder and the other guy had been moved to left.

I sort of wanted to be the second baseman, but i really ended up liking center. It was really a pretty good experience, although i never really learned to hit the curve ball! I bunted a lot!
The Professor

I'm sure everyone on the team held their breath whenever something was hit into right field, because the chances were really good that I'd drop it.

But I think I got at least a single almost every time I went to bat. Almost never struck or flied out. Which made games a little more bearable.

Liked your friend's story about playing outfield, chasing the ball over the wall, and how he just kept going.

(not Little League, because girls weren't allowed back then, but still)

Thankfully, that's been changed since I was a kid dying to play baseball.

she pitched, and was great. I played right field when i was younger. Then moved to catcher as I got older (and fatter).

I remember hitting exactly ONE home run, but I also hit a triple, which, for a slow, fat kid is like a home run - probably more impressive.

I played for about four or five years. Loved it. Never played in high school though, but I tried out once and couldn't cut it because i was too out of shape.

First of all, let it be known that I sucked at every sport, but still played sports all the time. So, in my 1st season of little league I got stuck out in RF (even though I _could_ field!). The first time up, I was batting 7th and the bases were loaded. All excited to be the hero and I got hit in the face with a fastball, broke my nose... end of season for me.
Our team was great. We had some giant 6 foot kid on it who could not be stopped. I couldn't believe he was under 12 years old, he seemed like a full grown man to us. I wish I remembered his name, who knows, he coulda made it to the pros. We won the whole league thanks to our superstar and they gave me a little trophy anyhow even though I didn't really do anything.
I played another season and broke my finger while catching a ball. Prior to that end of season injury I struck out all the time, probably due to fear of getting hit!
That's it for baseball. I went on to suck at other sports as well, but that is another topic!

My coaches always put me in the outfield to get me out of the way, because at that age, few hitters could get it to the outfield. But in the championship game I made a diving catch that I am still proud of. Hahaha, I remember my trade mark hit! Most of my hits were ground balls to the 3rd baseman, but I would always outrun the throw to first. And in desperation to get me at first, the 3rd baseman would always overthrow it, it would go wild, and I would get 2nd base. I got about 10 doubles off of crappy hits like that.

Good memories...

I was an assistant manager for my son's team and at our games our catcher's father constantly complained about the coaching and was extremely hard most of all on his own kid, who was a good little catcher but could never please his father.

Game after game this guy would yell stuff about the coaches not knowing anything about baseball and about how he knew much more having come up from the minors to the Yankees for a short period of time.

So, one game about halfway through the season my kid sticks his head out of the dugout after one of these lectures from the catcher's dad, holding up the Baseball Encyclopedia which, unknown to me, he had brought in his duffle bag. He says to the dad, "This book has the name of every person who ever wore a major league uniform, even if it was for only one day and even if they never got to bat or into the field and guess what? Your name ain't in it!"

LOL, complete silence for the rest of the season. Boy was I proud!

Seriously. OUCH.

I had my first real pitching experience one fall, and I was hoping I would be "promoted" from the lower minors to the upper minors because I was like older than most guys in the lower minors, anyhow I got drafted that year by a lower minors team and I was at first bummed out. I had my best season ever that year though, I converted from a sidearmer to an overhand pitcher though in retrospect, I think having the sidearm pitch in my pitches would have been a deadly thing. I hit good for once too, I think I hit around 300, I didnt have too much power, I never hit a home run in all my years in little league. Anyhow our first playoff game that year, we got off to a bad start, so I was brought in with the bases loaded and no one out, and I got out of the inning allowing only one of those runers to score, I then pitched scoreless ball for the win. I credit my catcher for the win just as much since he was a phenominal blocker behind the plate. We lost the game that would have gotten us in the championship but all was good. I also made the all stars for the first and only time, and because my team was the Orioles, I was on the AL, and I got an inning to pitch and one of the guys I faced was the son of a former coach of mine who lied to me about letting me pitch, and constantly played favoritism with his kid, I however struck out his kid, it was a fuck you to his dad who didnt see my potential. Sadly after that season, I only had one full pitching season again, and my hitting got way off so I changed from the league I played in which was the next town over but I went to school there because I live near the border to the league in my actual town where I attended middle school and now attend high school. I had my last hurrah that year, and two years later around I was done and pissed at baseball coaches for not seeing my pitching skills and even benching me for a whole half game once, and favoring their sons. My dad because he worked at nights and early evenings could have never been a coach. Thats my story, I loved to play baseball in the middle of elementary school but I got really disillusioned when I saw the favoritism and I guess I am a little upset that after my great season that I only pitched for one spring after that. I didnt play baseball in high school, in sixth grade I had planned to but the heart condition and my declining skill made me not try out. On a nice sidenote though, I had a lot of fun freshman year playing softball with people and being the only lefthanded shortstop.

so i was absolute shite the first year... but then the second year I was the 2nd or 3rd best player on my team. Starting pitcher... and closer... I could hit once in a while... but was mainly a pitcher... main memory was our team getting slammed 22-4 in one game (I wasn't pitching that day) but everytime I got up I hit a line drive off the wall and the other team kept laughing at my disappointment when I ended up at second and saying "I really thought THAT one was going over." I think it happened 3 times in the same game.