Little League Baseball

I am sure I am not the only one who tries to earn money a lot of different ways and one of my favorite ways is moonlighting as a little league umpire. Some people get the umpire patch to ump older kids and they get to wear those really sweaty outfits with the pants that I am pretty sure are made out of polyester and get a very official looking broom to clean the plate. Meanwhile I am on the adjacent field on a hot summer day smirking in a t-shirt and shorts with shin protectors that are one and the same as the ones the kids play with, a catcher's mask and a a foam pad.

On this particular day it was the All-Star Games for the 12-13 age group. I played this same age group in this same town made one all-star game and blew my only chance when I went to Vermont instead with my family. Now here I was watching kids 7 years younger than me play a game where no pitcher can throw more than one inning and it is a 7 inning game instead of a regular 6 inning for more at bats, and the glory of it all is these kids can all play!

The first pitcher thrown in the game was a high fastball that the catcher didn't quite nab it, which happens frequently when they close their eyes. The ball smacked me right in the face and it rang my bell really good. The bottom line of that mini-story is that these kids can really pitch. Every pitcher I saw in the game, and I saw 12, threw hard and straight. Mixed with some early signs of a curveball and these kids struck out the side probably 5 times combined. The fielding was the best part. A kid was erased trying to stretch a single off the fence because of a perfect relay between centerfielder and the cut off man. My heart lept a little like when I watched Jacoby Ellsbury turn on the jets and score from second on a passed ball. There were stolen bases, but there were also kids who got thrown out stealing a base. There were errors, but there were more exciting catchs and close plays that far outweighed any booted ground ball in my book. The final score was 9-7, and at young ages some of those runs are attributed to pastballs that advance the baserunners a minimum of two bases per inning, but this game had some excitement on the offensive side as well.

Don't judge me, I like to pick favorite kids in the games. Some of them I recognize as younger brothers of some of my classmates and some of them I have never seen before. My favorite in this game was this huge kid who reminded me a lot of younger, rounder Lance Berkman without the neck beard. Not only was he a sight to see when he ambled to the batters box, but he also had a positive attitude about everything and ran on and off the field every inning from whatever position. Oh... did I mention hit two solo home runs in the game one carried the fence in left made in likeness of the Fens, and the other went to dead center field, and they were two of the longest home runs I had seen hit. His first home run, to left, almost made me leap up and yell a little. It reminded of one of those homers Manny hits when he catches it right where he wants it and the ball leaves the park onto Landsdowne Street in about 3 seconds. The place went wild and this big kid pumped his fist once as he rounded first and then trotted the rest of the bases like he had done it before, greeted by loud cheers from the crowd and then at home plate by the rest of his team yelling far louder. In the 6th he actually hit a raw curveball that spun, but really shouldn't have been thrown by a 13 year old. It disappeared in the tree line about 15 feet behind the fence and to be honest it made me cry a little deep down to know that I was always a decent baseball player, but also very weak, so I was purely a singles hitter.

In all it was one of the more entertaining games of baseball I had seen in a long time and really made me miss the days when I could spend my spring and summer playing organized baseball with friends. In all; 3 kids hit home runs in the game, there was one suicide squeeze that worked and one that ended in a double play, and two legit web gems. One of the gems was the third basemen sprinting full on to catch a ball in foul territory and making an impossible catch high against the dugout fence as he crashed into it.

I called a pretty fair game, the coaches thanked me and paid me, and I left for home with my hunger for exciting baseball whetted for the night. Right as I was leaving my fellow, and patched, umpire was taking a little league bat and hitting baseballs over the short left field fence while kids jumped up and down and the coaches watched a little more money just disappear into the woods because a 20 year kid is still playing Gym class hero after umping their sons baseball games. I knew one of the coaches and said "If you want me to, I can do that on our field if you really need me to show him up." The coach laughed and answered, "Yeah, remember that kid from little league, he was a friggin noodlehead." Noodlehead is a sweet insult, and my fellow umpire richly deserved it.