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A
Home Run Just Doesn’t Mean What It Used To
by Stephen
Wunderli
As spring begins
stealing the mornings away from the frost and the starkness of winter,
the boys of summer dash off to muddy fields and cold practices.
Practices that promise to better them for the summer.
I coached a
baseball team of eleven-year-olds one summer. We didn’t practice
like other teams. Many of our kids were afraid of the ball, so I
pitched rotten apples to them. They loved the explosion at contact,
learned how much fun it is to connect, to really smash something
with everything you’ve got. And they got over their fears.
During games,
they stood in the box---staring down the pitcher, fanning the bat
a little over their shoulder, on their toes, waiting. They turned
into great hitters. It’s what happens when you get over the fear.
Confidence fills the void.
Our own pitcher
wasn’t much of an athlete. But he was tall, and the leverage he
could get on a pitch made him one of the fastest chuckers in the
league. His uniform was always pressed. His hair was perfect. Everything
had to be in its place. He had a rhythm to his windup. It never
changed. He only threw fastballs in the strike zone. I used him
to win games, to come in for the last two innings and blow cowhide
past kids who could hardly see the ball it traveled so fast. And
it worked, it worked all season until the last playoff game, the
game that decided who would play in the championship. We were ahead
by four runs. It was one away. Spence was pitching. His hair was
perfect. We were only 6 strikes from the championship game.
A friend of
mine has a glass company. One day he was explaining how the new
kind of strengthened glass works. You can walk into a sliding glass
door and it won’t break. But chink it with a sharp point, a nail
that you only have to tap in just the right spot, and the whole
sheet will shatter. It’s what happened to Spence, to our team, to
the whole universe. Spence threw a ball. Then another. And another,
until there was a man on first base. On second. The bases loaded.
One run, two runs, three. He was sweating. We all were. I don’t
believe in pulling a kid out in the midst of failure. How can a
kid ever learn to get his confidence back from the bench. One of
my football kids fumbled twice in a game---the first two times he
got the ball. I called his number again. My assistant coach was
livid. “He’s gonna get the ball until he learns to hang onto it,”
I said. And he did. But that’s a different story. Spence needed
something, and he needed it fast. I called to him to only think
about strikes, to shake it off, to pitch. But he was shattered.
I called timeout,
not knowing what to say. “How you doin’?” I asked him. He couldn’t
talk. He was shaking like a caged ferret. “Look,” I said to him.
“It’s only because your foot is coming down wrong. It’s a simple
thing, really.” And with that, I reached down and pushed his perfectly
pressed left sock down to his ankle. He was aghast at being out
of sorts. “It’s fine,” I said. “This works. You’ll concentrate on
your step now and throw strikes. OK?” He nodded his head. “Now throw
six strikes in a row and get us into the championship.” He nodded
again. “Do you believe me?” I asked him. “Do you believe what I
am telling you, that we are going to win this game and you are going
to be the hero?” A calmness came over him and he nodded again. He
looked down at his bare calf and smiled. Then he pitched six perfect
pitches and we went to the championship---every one of us in the
final game with our left sock pushed down to the ankle.
So I give you
this story because baseball has lost its magic. Somewhere the soul
of America’s pastime left the stadium and took a cross-town bus
to Madison Avenue. It’s not the same game kids play in dusty fields
across America. It’s not the game that defined us as a people. During
WWII, guards would ask soldiers what the words were to the second
verse of the Star Spangled Banner. If they knew, then they were
obviously German spies. No one in America knew the second verse;
only the first verse was sung at baseball games.
So for kids
and dads who love baseball the way it was, there is a new book by
Robert Burleigh and illustrated by Mike Wimmer titled simply: Home
Run. It’s a biography of Babe Ruth and tells the story in a
simple verse, while getting in details with baseball card illustrations.
Wimmer’s illustrations are wonderful, painterly pieces reminiscent
of Norman Rockwell. The book is published by Voyager Books, a division
of Harcourt, and is the recipient of a number of awards and accolades.
I’d recommend it for kids who have a few seasons under their belts
and want to know more about the game and some of its heroes.
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