The Under-Ten League
James Plourde

 

         Last year they played like ballerinas.

Dressed in yellow "Metro Parks" t-shirts, black pants and sneakers, my daughter Claire and her teammates pranced toward every hit ball, glove hand extended, palm-up, as if at the end of a wandering telescope. As grounder after grounder bounded toward them, they'd look away at the crucial moment, like a ballerina demurely averting her gaze, balls skittering between their legs.
Fly balls weren't any easier. The girls took tentative strides toward them with a part-fearful, part-quizzical expression, gloves in their upright and locked positions, trying to gauge what this airborne sphere might do. Invariably what it did was fall to the ground, which resulted in a mad scramble to pick it up and throw it. But where? This posed a dilemma even more perplexing than the attempted catch, a dilemma that reached algebraic proportions if there happened to be a runner or two on base.
Occasionally a weak grounder would trickle toward an infielder who had enough time to field it cleanly, only to make a lazy rainbow of a throw over the first basegirl's head.
And so it went, inning after inning, game after game. As baseball is a game without a clock, there is no reason save for a benevolent God why the other parents and I aren't sitting on the bleachers cheering the girls on at this very moment.
The one constant through this parade of miscues was Coach Steve. An airline pilot with an exceptional grasp of the game, including the rules peculiar to small-girls' softball, Steve knew when to encourage, how to instruct, but most of all how to keep each girl's self-esteem in tact. He also had the skill of finding just the right moment within the frenzy of a game to shout out a concise criticism, wrapped in a cocoon of encouragement. Say a grounder to second drew both the first and secondbasegirls to the ball, leaving no one to cover first. After the shouts of the crowd and the team members died down, out would come Steve's pronouncement: "Way to go stopping that grounder. Good hustle. Remember, Caroline, if Leezie can get to it, your job is to cover first."

This summer the girls played in the U-10 (in layman's terms, 10 years of age or under) League. In just one year, they lost much of their palms-up, ballerina-like approach to the game. Steve had his infielders assuming a "ready position." Knees flexed, butts out, arms loose, the tips of their gloves hovering millimeters above the infield dirt, they looked as if they could corral a pig in full charge let alone a little ol' softball.
Ground balls that made their way to the pitcher or second basegirl usually begat an on-target, in-time throw to nab the runner at first. Grounders to short or third, where Claire was positioned, were fielded with the same degree of proficiency. The only problem was that first base is about a dozen or so U-10 miles away, hence the throws were either short or well off the mark. Luckily, few U-10 hitters could pull.
That wasn't the case on one Saturday afternoon, however. Claire, at her usual third base position, stopped a sharply hit grounder with her mouth. She had the presence of mind to pick up the ball and throw it to first before she started crying, which drew much praise from the parents in the stands, especially the dads. Amazingly, the blow didn't draw blood. Even more amazing, there was no damage to her orthodontia, which consisted of a network of wires and levers second only to the Safeco Field retractable roof in its engineering. But at half the cost.

The improvement in the infield play was coupled with a vastly improved offense. Claire and a few of the other girls found the timing and tempo needed to make solid bat-on-ball contact. A well-hit ball often resulted in a trip to first base, maybe even second depending on the number of throwing errors.
As I sat on the bleachers with the other parents, talking about work or life in general, I would often lose track of the game only to look up and see Claire striding toward the plate for her at-bat. She assumed a distinctive batting stance, like a jackknife in mid-fold. A jolt of fear and anxiety would grab hold, and any conversation would stop while I gave the situation my full attention. If Claire got a hit, I'd feel a wave of pride at her accomplishment and relief that she wouldn't have to do that again anytime soon. If she made an out, I'd be on red alert to gauge her reaction, ever mindful of the crushing blow to the self-confidence that Little League baseball dealt to me at her age. I would extend an imaginary force field around her, and be ready if any girl or other human being dare say an unkind thing, which, of course, they never did.

Claire and her teammates got their share of hits, but our secret weapon this season was pitching, which took life in the form of a short, skinny, fair-skinned girl with long yellow hair named Alice. Alice's persona was as intimidating as a lamb's, which proved most unsettling to opposing teams. For on the mound, Alice would zing pitches across home plate with an alarming degree of consistency, all the while smiling her "Gee, I'm just trying to give it my best shot" grin at the opposing batter.
In the U-9 League, the coach takes over pitching duties when the count gets to ball four until the batter either strikes out swinging or puts it in play. In U-10, ball four gets the batter to first base. And the pitching talent in U-10 is, shall we say, thin. Usually the parents -- who in the early innings had been cheering every pitch with great enthusiasm -- begin looking like they're on maintenance doses of Thorazine by the time the seventh run of the inning is scored by yet another bases-loaded walk.
Even if a pitcher can occasionally put one over the plate for a called strike, every batter knows deep down that if she can just hold on long enough, the odds of the count hitting ball four before strike three lean heavily in the batter's favor.
But not with Alice. Alice, as they say in softball parlance, brings it. Alice gets to strike 3 quick enough, by God, so you had better swing. This put enough fear into the opposing team that by the latter innings, they'd swing at just about anything Alice threw, vaulting her season strike-out total somewhere near the border of Randy Johnsonville.

The season finale was against a team called Storm, at whose hands we had suffered a close loss earlier in the season. That night Alice got off to a slow start but soon enough was in her usual form. Both teams were well matched, and we headed into the last inning tied 6-6.
Storm's at-bat in the top half of the inning produced a rare homer that put them up by two runs, leaving our girls with one last chance to pull it out.
We managed through some walks and hits to load the bases with one out when who should stride up to the plate but my Claire. She had a key hit earlier in the game that sparked the team's six-run inning, and I could tell the coach was counting on her to bring in a run or two here.
As Claire approached the plate, time slowed. I was the substitute first base coach for the game, so I could give the situation my full attention. Claire looked down the first base line at me with a serious expression, which I couldn't quite interpret. Fear? Determination? Dread? I wanted her removed from this pressure and in this exact spot in equal proportions.
I thought back to my own humiliation as the nervous, fat kid whom everyone just expected, correctly, to strike out. Especially with the game on the line. Especially like now.
This made the pain almost palpable when Claire swung at a too-high pitch for strike one. She let the next one go for ball one. She let the next one go as well, but this time for a called strike. The count was 1 and 2, and she looked frozen up there.
But as bad as I wanted to, I knew I couldn't put the force field around her now. She had to be free to swing away. As the next pitch sailed toward home, I could see that Claire was about to swing, which she did, hitting a beautiful arcing shot that flew directly toward the second basegirl, who merely raised her glove to record the out. Claire slumped her way to the bench.
The next batter swung wildly at the first three pitches thrown to her, and that was that; the season was over.
I jogged across the infield toward our dugout amid the cheers and joyful faces of the opposing team. Claire, in tears, collapsed into me for a hug. "I could have been a hero," she said. "Instead, I struck out."
"But you didn't strike out," I told her. "You hit the ball solidly in a very pressure-packed situation. It's just that the other girl made a good catch."
"But it's still an out," she countered, looking up at me with bloodshot eyes, tears muddying her dirty cheeks.
I summoned all my baseball authority from within, all those miserable lessons learned on the Little League diamond. I got down on one knee, looked her in the eyes, and said, "Claire, hitting the ball for an out and striking out are two completely different things."
She stopped crying, thought about it, and said those three words every father longs for, "Ya, you're right." And for the moment, self-esteem was restored, and an entire season was put into perspective.

The poet-undertaker Thomas Lynch once said that the only prayer that gets answered with any regularity is "Thank you." Driving home from the game in the twilight, Claire by my side in the front seat, I prayed a silent thank-you. I was thankful for the gift of a season of living and dying with her and the girls of the U-10 League. I was thankful for the gift of fatherhood. I was thankful for, every now and then, finding the right thing to say to my kid.

Bring on U-11.

    
      
      

 

 

Copyright © 2001 James Plourde
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"