Tales from the Dugout: Enjoying the Final Ride (Part 1)

(TR makes another clumsy stab at channeling Rob Lasso's coaching anecdotes. TR is the handsome guy in the grey shirt in the poorly shot photo above.)

It is a bittersweet summer for TR in Chatham, NJ. The weather is perfect, my life is filled with youth baseball, and I have a crowded social calendar. These are good things! Yet at the same time, I am packing my life up, saying goodbye to friends and neighbors, and getting ready to move 1,800 miles away after spending 10+ years in my town. 

I head-coach my younger boy's U11 travel baseball team. I coached him four of the last five years. This year has been special for a couple reasons. The first is that our club is strong. Really strong. We are a true B team, but it's a deep age group in our town. We went head to head with our strong A team in a scrimmage and held our own. We went 8-1 in our spring season and won our league title, earning some gold. We thumped our rival in the finals. We grinded out six runs against their ace over five innings before blowing things open in the top of the 6th, scoring 10 to win 16-2. In all competitions and scrimmages, we are 14-3 (through 6/13). 

I could see the team improving, so I entered us into the district travel tournament, known as Ripken. This is where (mostly) strong A teams battle it out. Part of my rationale was hearing of the success of other strong B teams from my town, including one that the son of Juan Carlos played on. My goal was to get good competition so the boys could measure themselves. One win in the four pool play games would be a success, a 2-2 performance would be great, and making the playoffs would be a home run. My boys loved being a part of this, just like the "A team" kids (many of whom are worse than my top players). Getting the Ripken t-shirt and wearing a jersey with the Ripken patch on it was almost a prize in itself. 

I felt good about my team's bats and our top pitchers, but I wondered how we would do. The tournament started last Wednesday. After falling behind 6-2 early and giving up a bomb of a HR to a kid my size, we clawed out a 9-8 win. Our athletic catcher retrieved a wild pitch and ran back to tag a runner trying to score to end the game. High drama. And we did it with our second and third best pitchers. Our ace was still resting after pitching five no-hit innings for the spring title. 

We had our second Ripken game last Thursday night. Our kids did not play great D, but our starting pitcher (our fourth best) battled. And our bats were on fire, as they usually are. We cruised to a 16-6 mercy rule, 4-inning win. My kid had another nice lovable a-hole moment. He was playing 3B and ran to catch a foul pop. He was right in front of the opposition dugout. They screamed "DROP IT! over and over again. I never let my kids do that. He caught it, he told them to shut up from five feet away, and then he trotted in to our dugout (it was the 3rd out). I love that kid. He's gonna get punched in the face soon.

But I'd like to talk about the second reason this year is special. And that is because it is the Holy Grail of good vibes on the team. No negative energy kids. No parents reminding me ten times that their kids are great pitchers. Just kids and coaches having fun. 

During games, my wife and the other parents get their load on. I mean, they REALLY get after it. I basically watch a fun party with 20-25 people that I can never attend. Two dads bring a grill each game and get hot dogs and sliders going for the kids once the game ends. One was a First Team PAC-10 safety in the late 80's from Arizona who is now a football coach. Great guy. He knows how to tailgate. 

I will miss this bunch. And I will missing coaching my kids. I am ready to step aside after I move. But for now, I will focus on our Ripken success. We are 2-0. One win in either of our next two games gets us into the playoffs. And we still have a summer travel title win (we are 1-0 there after a 14-3 win). Stay tuned.