Little League signals a slow awakening toward adulthood

The Orono-Veazie Little League initiatied its second year of play with tryouts recently. The Orono middle school gym was opened and the lights were turned on for 37 boys and girls, ages 9 to 12, who hadn’t played for a Little League team last year. About 10 coaches, including me, were in attendance. Each child was given an opportunity to show how well they could throw, catch grounders and catch pop flies, and hit a pitched ball.

It was a mild, sunny day and some of the throwing evaluations were done outside. Footing was muddy and when the ball hit the ground it didn’t bounce, it plopped. After yet another long, dark winter, the boys (yougn and old alike) and girls shed their multiple layers of wool and various other fabrics and were warmed by the springtime. The exuberance factor was particularly high for all attendess. God was in his heaven, the snow was gone, and it was time for another season of baseball.

It tugs at your heartstrings to watch some of these kids try out. Baseball caps pulled oer tousled hair, little bodies twisting and yanking to swing bats that come up to their chests. Nervous glances shoot out of power blue eyes, gauging coaches’ reactions. Some kids are thrilled with their performances, others are devastated. If guardian angels spend much of their time keeping children who play tee-ball from getting killed they occasionally visit a Little League tryout. Hard baseballs thrown by kids with no accuracy to other kids who try to catch those baseballs with their eyes closed, and heads turned away, just in case. Some of the less trusting coaches wore their baseball gloves while evaluating the throwing and catching. We are pleased to report that for the second year in a row, there were no serious injuries during tryouts.

Unfortunately, some of the kidw who want to play have had very little opportunity to learn the game. Some hold the bat with hands crossed. Others don’t comprehend the rules. Last year, a child did not know how put on the baseball glove. Often there is a hopeful mother nearby, trying to arrange for her child some contact with a relatively normal male. (And among this gorup of coaches, it’s slim pickings indeed.) The shadow of an absent father darkens the smiles of these children, kids who have rarely or never knoiwn the simple joybs of catching and throwing a baseball with their dad. In a world so rife with confusion about parent-child relationships, few things are as clear and simple as having a catch.

And few activities are as rewarding. My relationship with my father was difficult and complex, but I will always be thankful for the hours he spent catching and throwing a baseball with me. In a time when so many rituals and experiences that help move boys into manhood have been either lost or perverted, playing baseball remains. For all of time, boys worked with their fathers hunting, farming, and more recently, learning various trades. Fathers taught their sons how to work, and connected and communicated with them about family, responsibility, the seasons of life. Only in the last hlalf centry have the majority of fathers left home to jobs that their children did not fully comprehend, inside buildings that they rarely visited.

It is only our recreational time that we fathers can share with our children, when we can do the awesome and frightening task of raising them toward adulthood. And while it does indeed take a village (or more) to raise a child, where is that village? Is it on one of the 50 TV channels, somewhere among the millions of Internet sites, in their school, at a park, among neighbors, contained in families that live thousands of miles apart? The more fragmented our culture becomes, the more we as parents must filter, censor, edit, evaluate, and control.

Little League provides a village of sorts. We have a “code of conduct” which all players, coaches, and parents must read and sign. “Excessively critical or insulting language” will not be tolerated from anyone. Parents are required to “demonstrate civility” to all participants, coaches included. Players are required to support their teammates. The coaches, who are all fathers of players on their team, teach and instruct during practices, but it is the children who pay the games. They are the ones who have the stage; who must learn to swallow the humiliation of the booted groundball, the called third strike, the dropped pop fly. They are the ones whom we chasten and limit when they lose control or perspective, whom we pay on the back and encourage when they become despondent. In a recently completed exhibition game, a 12-year-old who has never played anything but right field, but who has demonstrated a strong throwing arm this year, was given an opportunity to pitch for the first time. This is a child who has had difficulties in his young life, but has a sweetness about him aching to be released and planted in some fertile field of endeavor. Alas, the potential for more failure bombarded him; it seemed less like an opportunity and more lie a crucifixion. He whispered to me, “What if I stink?”

“You won’t stink,” I promised him, “and besides, it’s onloy an exhibition game, it doesn’t really count.” How pathetically uninformed was I about this kid’s interior. Maybe it wouldn’t count in the league standings, but it certainly would count on the scales of his self-worth, which had been leaning in the wrong direction for as long as he could remember. The chances were too great, he declined the offer to test skills that were too new, too much in doubt. At the end of the game, he sheepishly wondered whether there would be another time to try and gather his courage. It’ll be our job as coaches to find that time, one of many jobs we’ll have with this team, this year.

Little League is pretend verging on the real, a slow awakening toward adulthood, a place where strong arms can catch you if you fall. Our kids need more places where their errors don’t really count in the standings. “Play ball!”

Jack Keefe, a Veazie resident, is a clinical psychologist and a free-lance writer.