My baseball career began and ended in elementary school. I played three years of Little League—I spent two seasons being the worst player on a very good team1 and one year being an ok player on a very bad team. My crowning individual achievement was being named to the “Best of the Rest” all-star team in sixth grade, which meant I got to keep playing after the regular season ended against other people who weren’t quite good enough to make the actual All-Star teams. I have few specific memories of my baseball career: I know that I caught a few pop flies in the outfield and sometimes played catcher2 and could hit some base hits from time to time. I remember being equally impressed and annoyed when a kid on another team who wasn’t very good once hit a legitimate home run, and I remember making a joke to my coach about the trophy I got at the end of the season in sixth grade for… playing all three years, I think3.
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Recently, I’ve had a moment from Little League playing on a loop in my head. It was my second season. We were playing another good team, and their head coach was really unhappy with the home plate umpire. After a few innings, the coach had had enough and ran out on to the field and got into a full on shouting match with the ump. In front of all of us: thirty or so kids, all the parents and family members, etc… The umpire finally ejected him, leading to this exchange that has been etched into my brain:
Coach4: Do you have a rulebook?
Umpire: Leave the field.
Coach: Do you have a rulebook?
Umpire: Leave the field.
Coach: Do you have a rulebook?
Umpire: Leave the field.
Finally the coach left and presumably went and sat in his car until the game ended. In reality, this was probably about two minutes of all of our lives. We definitely talked about it at school the next day, but that was kind of it.
Moments like this one take on new meaning now that I’m an Official Grown Up5, and it’s been interesting to examine my memory of it. I’m left with a few questions:
What did any of the other parents who were there think about it?
What happened behind the scenes that the other kids and I weren’t aware of, if anything?
Why was this coach/parent in such a sour mood at a volunteer Little League umpire6? What else was going on in his life that he took it out on that guy in that moment?
Finally, how accurate is my memory of this? Was it as shocking as I remember? Did it happen at all?
So many of my memories—and probably just about everybody’s memories—don’t have a narrative arc. They’re not stories with a clear resolution; they aren’t fables with a clear moral at the end; they’re just snapshots that start off clear before they blur and fade over time.
This isn’t my only memory like that one. I also had a brief and unimpressive youth basketball career. I barely played—I think the most points I ever score in a game was four. I remember my coach in sixth grade teaching us a complex offense that seemed to amount to one person being allowed to shoot and everyone else setting a lot of picks and throwing a lot of bounce passes. I remember me and one other kid7 on the team both getting DNP-CD’s8 in one game. In fact, I remember that game more than any of the games I did play, mostly because it’s completely perplexing to me as an adult:
Did the coach care that much about winning that he didn’t want to play two of his worst players? Or did he just forget about us?
Were we being punished for some reason? If we were, I don’t ever remember hearing a reason for it. I just remember showing up for the game, warming up, then sitting on the bench until it was over.
I don’t think I would’ve gone on to be a great basketball player if I had a different coach or anything like that, but I do know that I had been identified early on as “not that good.” I don’t think it was intentional, but I was aware of it, and I wish I hadn’t been. I didn’t even try out for basketball in seventh grade. My life wasn’t lacking for it: I found other things I loved—soccer, music, theatre… but I feel like twelve years old is too young to feel like you’ll never be good at something you like.
These memories may not be stories, but I can feel how they’ve informed me as an Official Grown Up. For starters: my youth coach sports persona will be more Mike McDaniel than Lou Piniella.
But perhaps more importantly, I don’t ever want a fear of being bad at something to prevent me (or my daughter) from doing something fun or rewarding or interesting. Case in point: I recently started running after about a ten year layoff. For a long time, I told anyone and everyone that I just didn’t enjoy it. Turns out, that wasn’t exactly true. What I actually hated was the pressure I was putting on myself to be fast. I’d put on up-tempo music and run the same three mile loop over and over to see how fast I could do it and I burned myself out. These days, I listen to a podcast and run to explore with only a passing interest in how fast I’m doing it. I like being outside, I like being active, and anything else about it just doesn’t matter.
A Song, An Album, and A Playlist
Stop Making Sense (Deluxe Edition) by Talking Heads: I’ve been listening to the last three songs on the way home from daycare pickup recently because my daughter likes singing along to “Take Me To The River”
Summer Vibez: Embarrassing title but I stand by it.
And being scared of being hit by a pitch, which is a legitimate fear that I am not ashamed of.
They had to procure a left handed catchers mitt for me, which…. why does anyone even make those?
Quick reminder to anyone complaining about millennials being the “participation trophy generation:” we were twelve. We didn’t ask for the trophies.
Names omitted for privacy reasons and because I don’t remember them.
Best I can tell, it happened sometime around 2017, when I started waking up sore and when I finally accepted my baldness.
Maybe it’s just that some men will literally get kicked out of a youth baseball game instead of go to therapy.
See note 3.
Did not play-coach’s decision
Donald Glover did double duty as host and musical guest on SNL in 2018. He sang his mega-hit “This is America” first, and performed this gem second. It’s been six years and he HAS NOT RELEASED IT! Where is this song, Donald? I just want to put it on all my Spotify playlists.