I played baseball from 1970, until 1981...ages 7-18. 12 seasons...12 summers. In that dozen years there was only one year when I really had a bad summer and baseball let me down.
In the summer of 1977 I was 13 and it was my first year for Senior division. I tried out for the Cochran and Trivetts sponsored team. I had been an all star for the two seasons before and was amongst the best of my age group. The only problem was now I would be playing with boys as much as 3 years older than me and they had seniority.
It was tough for a twelve year old to crack a lineup of 13-15 year olds. To make matters worse, at that time, Suburban Little League was producing great catchers. Every team had at least one great catcher. Guys who were legends even then...Mike Scully, Sherm Johnson, Jerry Faragher, Kevin Prather, Bobby King, Doug Price, to name a few. Some of these guys went on to play pro ball and most would go on to college.
The problem was, I was a catcher.
Cochran and Trivetts had Kevin Prather and Jeff Farris and they didn't need me. After two weeks I was cut. The only time I'd ever been cut from a baseball team in my life. I went from being a star to not playing at all and I was devastated. The ball field was my home in the summer. I'd rather be playing baseball than anything else on earth back then. The team was my family. The coaches were father figures to me. I loved the game. I loved the dust behind the plate and setting up the infield and whispering "swing" every once in a while and inducing a third strike from a hesitant batter.
I loved the way the catchers mitt looked, I loved the gear. I loved lining up the cutoff man for the throw from the outfield. I loved watching the left fielder go back as far as he could when I stepped up to bat, and it still not being far enough. I just loved the game.
Suddenly that one summer I wasn't playing. I felt lost. I went home that afternoon and stayed in my room all weekend. I felt like someone I loved had died. Not playing was about the worst thing that every happened to me.
The next spring I got a phone call from Russ Staats who was coaching a new team in the Senior Division; Lafeyette Radio. Coach Staats had selected me in the draft and I was on the team. That was the good news. The bad news was that they had also traded for Jerry Faragher and I would be a backup. That was okay, I thought. I'm on the team and that's what matters.
Practices began...as Little League practices do in the Northeast...in March and it is always too cold for baseball. Every ball you hit in batting practice feels like it chopped your fingers off. It doesn't tingle...it hurts. And it hurts all day long. But it is part of the tradition and it's a fond memory for me. It's nothing you haven't long forgotten by opening day.
That summer...and the one that followed...were very different summers for me as a player. I got my very first taste of what shattered confidence will do. (I didn't realize all this at the time, of course) I had always been a prodigious hitter. I had power, I hit for average, I drew a walk instead of swinging without restraint. But those next two seasons when I returned to the game after my one summer without it, were very different. I couldn't hit anything. Not because I was seeing faster pitching, not because the mound was now at 60' 6". Not because they were mixing in breaking balls with the fastballs. It was because I was afraid. I was afraid of failure.
Sports had always been my domain but baseball was special to me. Hockey too by this point, but baseball had captured my soul when I was 4 years old and it never let me go. I was good at it and I
needed to be good at it. Nobody at home really liked sports and so the coaches approval became vital. If my abilities as a player went unrecognized at the dinner table it was okay, because at places like George Reed field, William Penn field, and Pleasantville field I was noticed and accepted. I was held in awe for massive home runs and great throws to second base.
All that disappeared that one summer when I got cut. I was nobody without baseball.
So making the team was crucial and not failing again was as important as breathing. I was so afraid of screwing up and failing that I took the safest route...
and refused to swing the bat.For two whole seasons I would not take that bat off my shoulders. I waited out a lot of walks and I went down looking a lot. But I would not swing. I couldn't. I was so scared of failure. I was so afraid that if I swung and missed they would cut me again...then what would I do? Where would I be?
At one point coach Staats was so frustrated with me that he grabbed me by the shoulders, looked into my eyes and said "Swing the damn bat!" but I could not.
In retrospect, Coach really liked me and he kept me around because I threw myself into the "great teammate" role with gusto. I contributed from the bench by yelling loudest for my teammates. It was sad.
We won the league championship the summer I turned 15 and I got a jacket and a trophy. Coach Staats gave us all a nice plastic encased baseball with our names, position, and batting averages on it. Everyone accept me, of course. I had no average. He wrote, "Most spirited" on mine where my average should have been. He smiled when he gave it to me and I think he was as embarrassed as I was.
The next summer I didn't play ball in a league. It didn't hurt because I thought I was just out of opportunities. There actually was one more level I could play at but I wasn't aware of it. I spent that summer just playing pick-up games in the sandlot fields near my house. I wasn't performing for anyone and I rediscovered playing the game for fun.
...and I got my swing back.
The next year, my senior year in high school, my school had our first baseball team. I tried out, and there was never a question of my making the team and being a great player. Not when I was regularly bouncing the ball off of playgrounds 400 feet away or driving in 3 runs at a time with line drives that might have killed anyone trying to stop them. Kenny Wilson and I platooned behind the plate. I caught when he pitched and I caught when my best friend Mark pitched. When Kenny caught I played first, if Kenny had pitched the day before, he played first and I caught in order for him to rest his arm.
We had an incredible team and from the first day of practice we knew we would be champions...and we were.
Most importantly I had my stroke back. I hit .280 that year and was either 1st or 2nd in every batting category. I hit one memorable shot at the fields at 18th and VanBuren that my best friend and I paced off at 439 feet to the point where Matt Coty, their left fielder, made the luckiest catch in history.
The next summer I would play one final season of Little League ball for Suburban's Big League (16-18 year olds) team and then my playing days were through. I did try out for the team at Liberty the fall of my freshman year. I was a nervous wreck. Al Worthington was the head coach back then and he was a former pro pitcher. My first 4 swings in BP I whiffed like a madman. I stepped out of the box, caught my breath and crushed the next pitch out of the park, over the 20 foot foul pole in left field, across the train tracks and halfway down the hill to Ward's road. I watched the ball disappear into the bright September sky and I was as proud as I'd ever been. Whether I made this team or not, I had just taken a college pitcher out of the yard in a fashion I'd never seen before. It was colossal. Coach Worthington scribbled something on his clipboard, I took another cut and whiffed again. That afternoon I was offered a job at an auto parts store and I figured I'd better take it.
And baseball was done for me forever.
But I went out the way I always played...with a gigantic blast that others admired. (Darren Talley, a dorm mate, was also trying out for the team. He was in left field when I hit the ball and said he'd never seen anything leave the park so fast. He said it cleared the pole by 20 feet and was still going
up when it went over his head)
Maybe it was the time away from the game that one summer when I turned 16. Maybe it was putting enough distance between getting cut, refusing to risk swinging again, and rediscovering what it felt like to hit the ball. Something derailed the train of fear and failure.
Life is like that. I would once again find out what failure felt like when I went through a divorce. And again when I lost my career and my home. But it was baseball that reminded me what success felt like...the night my Phils won that series in 2008. And it was Baseball that reminded me that sometimes we fear our failure so much that we fail even more.
But is was baseball that also taught me that if you're good..you're good...and nobody can take that from you. Good as a ballplayer...good as a man...good as a dad. You're great at
something...just find it, remember it, and
repeat it!
Play Ball!
Note: In October of 2009 at Homecoming I went to Worthington field and walked off that shot as best I could...it was around 510 feet. Yep...I'm proud of that!
