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 Short Stories |
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Tuesday, September 26
Magic Dust
Red dust spews into the dry North Carolina air when a fast moving three wheeler towing a drag enters the infield from behind first base. The unmuffled sound of the vehicle's engine rises and falls like a stock car negotiating a short track as the driver races from base to base in a shrinking spiral. The Catawba Valley lies in the heart of stock car racing country alright, but we have come to the thriving hamlet of Hickory to play baseball in the Catawba Valley Autumn Classic tournament.
This is the first of many out of town tournaments the Richmond Braves National Baseball Team will attend in a 100 game season that stretches from September to August. We are after all a travel baseball team. Like some kind of throwback to an era when independent baseball teams barnstormed across the country in the 1920's and 30's, we spend 35 weekends a year on the road between New York and Florida playing baseball.
The rise of recreational programs like Little League, Inc. in the 1950's discredited the notion of independent travel baseball teams for the better part of 40 years. Convenience trumped competitiveness, so competitive youth baseball disappeared from America as rapidly as suburban malls shuttered downtown shopping.
A revival began about 10 years ago led in part by North Carolina AAU. Today there are hundreds of independent teams in the Tar Heel state and at least one baseball tournament every weekend from March through November. The Catawba Valley Baseball AAU invitational tournaments in Hickory are the biggest and most prestigious. Nearly 100 teams from five states come to the Catawba Valley to play on a Friday in September. As daylight dwindles on Sunday, the Richmond Braves National Baseball Team is determined to be the last to leave.
It is five o'clock and we are five hours from Richmond. Parents, anxious to get on the road, study their watches to calculate time and distance as they await the first pitch of the championship game.
The noisy three wheeler dragging the infield completes its final lap and dashes for the open gate. A curtain of finely powdered clay left in its wake lifts toward center field revealing our third and final opponent of the day, the Charlotte Heat.
Outside the tiny third base dugout, the Braves starting nine, gloves in hand, stand almost motionless. Their red wool fitted hats, pulled down low to combat the slanting sunlight, are etched with a jagged white ring of dried perspiration. Once fresh navy blue jerseys by now resist all efforts to be stuffed into gray pants soiled with green and reddish orange skid marks.
The calm expression on their young faces belies the team's impressive track record in four previous tournament appearances in North Carolina: 4 championships: 15 wins, 0 losses.
In contrast to the Braves, the Charlotte Heat players across the diamond are animated and dapper. No grass or dirt stains obtained from headlong dives mark their bright white knickers. The tails of their black and red sleeveless vests are tightly tucked.
The recipient of a favorable draw, the Heat is playing its first game of the day to our third. We figure this is an advantage for us. Our boys are battle ready and they look like they just showed up for picture day.
Baseball tournaments are funny. The two best teams don't always meet in the championship game. Sometimes they face each other in the preliminary rounds. Our game earlier in the day against the Carolina Mariners is a good example.
The Mariners came to Hickory with one goal in mind - to beat the Braves. Like us and 48 other top teams from around the nation, the Mariners attended the AAU National 9U Baseball Championship in Florida in July. And like us and 24 of the teams there, they made it to the championship round. We managed to get to the final eight teams while they exited in the round of 16.
Dangerous and hungry to make a mark against a marquee team like the Braves, the Mariners warranted our ace pitcher. They countered with their own ace, a flame throwing righthander who limited our usually powerful lineup to only four hits and two runs. Their ace was very good. Ours was better. We won 2-0 and took dead aim at a fifth straight NCAAU championship.
Umpires finally appear on the infield with orders to get the championship game underway. Nine small hands reach to touch each other. Nine strong voices join to shout "Go Braves" as hands part and feet scamper onto the field.
No sooner than he shouts "play ball," the home plate umpire says "ball four" as the lead off hitter for the Charlotte Heat trots toward first base. A lead off walk is never a good way to start a game, much less a championship game. Hitters at the competitive level are so aggressive you almost have to throw it over the backstop for them not to swing.
Walking the lead off hitter in any inning usually results in a run since the runner has three outs to advance around the bases. True to form, the Heat scores and takes an early 1-0 lead. Hopes for a quick four inning victory by slaughter rule fade among the restless parents seated in the concrete stands behind third base. Each momentarily contemplates the implications of a post-midnight arrival back in Richmond.
Travel baseball parents endure a constant tug-of war between their heads and their hearts. The concessions they make to baseball are so great as to be intolerable to all but a few. What explains skipping school and work on Friday to drive 300 miles to a baseball tournament, then returning home in the wee hours of Monday morning? The simplest explanation is this: They are parents of ten year-old "phenoms" so blessedly talented at hitting and throwing a baseball that they have already outgrown little league. New challenges must constantly be sought to develop such exceptional skills. Most often those challenges lie in distant places.
No amount of inconvenience, it seems, outweighs the pleasure these parents experience in watching their gifted sons play baseball. Consider the case of the father and son who drove from Richmond to Hickory in the predawn hours on Saturday morning to make our opening game of the tournament. Their departure had been delayed overnight by the birth of a daughter and sister at 8:30 on Friday night. The son fittingly celebrated the ocassion of his sister's birth by slugging a mammoth 300 foot home run during the tournament.
Three and half innings into the championship game and the scoreboard in right field reads: Braves 6, Heat 3. The Heat's tired pitcher warms up for the fourth inning by throwing every pitch in the dirt. The final outcome is no longer in doubt, only the final score.
Seven Braves cross the plate in the home half of the fourth inning before an out is recorded. The umpire consults with the official scorer. "Ball game," he drawls, "Braves win the championship, 13-3."
Neither time nor facilities exist for showers. The players of the Richmond Braves National Baseball Team will wear a gold medal and a robe of red dust back to Virginia.
God makes baseball players from red earth and grows them by adding layers of red dust to their bodies every time they take the field. By the time we reach the outskirts of Richmond after midnight the red dust will be gone, magically absorbed to enrich already considerable baseball talents.
Copyright: Jeff Roberts, 2000
Monday, January 8
Three Gifts
(On the first day of our winter workouts each year we remind our players of their "three gifts" .)
When each of you was born you received three great gifts: a healthy body, a strong mind and the spirit of a winner. Nine years later you showed up to play for the Richmond Braves National Team with all three gifts still intact. You can thank your parents for seeing to that. Whether you know it or not, these three gifts are your most prized possessions. They are more valuable than your Chipper Jones baseball cards or your high priced big barrel bats or all the gold medals hanging in your rooms.
Your moms and dads will continue to do everything in their power to help you make the most of your three gifts, but more and more, you and you alone, will determine whether they are put to good use or squandered. How well you care for these gifts will determine your future.
Here are a few of my suggestions on how to care for each gift:
For the good of your body, eat good food. Drink lots of water. Exercise daily. Go to bed early. Will's great grandmother lived to be 93 years old. She went to bed at dark and always said the best hours of sleep are the ones before midnight.
For the good of the mind, be curious. Read everything. Read the newspaper. Ask your parents questions about current events. Write a sentence or two in a journal everyday. Spend time looking up at the stars.
Of your three gifts, your spirit is by far the greatest because it is where the will to win resides in you. This is the gift most likely to be squandered because to feed the spirit, you must solve a paradox.
For the good of the spirit, you must not think about yourself, but must put others first. I bet you have all felt your spirit grow, but didn't know it. Have your ever helped lift someone else's burden? When I was about your age, my mom would come home from work to a house filled with three little boys and all the mess we could make. Every once in a while my two brothers and I would get the notion to clean the house before Mom came home. We ran the vacuum, dusted the furniture, washed the dishes, made the beds, and set the table for supper. I will never forget the feeling I had when Mom came home to find her chores done. We had lifted her burden and lifted our spirits. You can enrich your spirit in only one way, by putting others before yourself. Be kind to others. Do good deeds for no apparent reason.
You are probably wondering what this has to do with baseball? The baseball field is a perfect place to continuously measure the health and well being of your three great gifts. To excel in a baseball game you must rely on your body, mind and spirit. Competition reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each of your gifts. If you have not taken good care of your body, mind and spirit before the contest, the competition of baseball will surely reveal the neglect.
Be mindful of your gifts. Be thankful for your gifts. Take care of your body, mind, and spirit. Nurture all three gifts and you can have but one destiny-greatness. This is what being a Brave is all about-the pursuit of greatness.
Sunday, February 20
A few words of encouragement . . .
The following is an e-mail message send to each of the Braves the day before high school tryouts in February, 2005. Most of the boys are freshman in high school and have great expectations to make varsity. I have known some of them all their lives and the rest since they were little boys. After many years of traveling in the company of these amazing young men, I am anxious about this moment in their lives. Like any father, I want my many "sons" to do their best and find success in their endeavors.
Hi Braves-
Well, high school baseball season starts tomorrow (or next Monday) for most if not all of you. I know you are excited and maybe a little nervous. I am anxious and nervous for each of you. I lie awake at night trying think of what more I can do or say to make sure you do well. In my heart, I know you are prepared but my mind wants to make sure I haven't let you down on this day.
You should not be nervous at all. You are all elite baseball players. Your skills and experience far exceed most of the other players you are competing against. All you have to do is relax and let it show. The best way to do that is to try to remember some of the many great experiences you have enjoyed on the ball fields across America. When you take the field this week, transport your mind back to a time when you played your best tournament or best game. Remember the confidence you had each time you went to the plate or stepped on the mound in a big game you helped your team win. Think of the joy and satisfaction you felt when you delivered for your team, time and time again. Each of you has been to the pinnacle of success. You have played on teams that have won state and regional titles as well as national and world series championships. Remember who you are. You are baseball royalty. I don't say that to make you think you are above your peers. I say that to remind you that you have already proven yourselves many times over. You are blessed with such skill, physical ability and experience that you can't help but succeed.
Conduct yourself in the same business like fashion that you go about your work as a Brave. Clean your cleats (I won't make you shine them). Wear a decent pair of baseball pants (one that you have used before, but without too many holes). Wear a decent shirt (a Perfect Game shirt would be best, I think, but if you don't have one, wear one of your favorite tournament shirts). Let folks know you are not only going places, you have been places! Be the first one on the practice field (if you can) and start preparing yourself for the day's work. Make sure you completely warm the muscles and tendons in your throwing shoulder and elbow before you ever pick up a ball.
Stay away from the clowns and the goof balls.
Look right at your coach when he talks.
If tryouts start or end with a timed run, be the first to finish.
Be yourself. None of you are rah-rah types (that's what makes you great), you lead by example.
Make every throw, swing and catch with workmanlike precision. Do it like it means something. Don't show off with flashy theatrics.
And above all, don't show any emotion except the contendedness you should feel from being on the place you were born to be--a baseball field. If you make a bad throw, drop a ball or hit a dribbler, don't show any outward emotion. Just go back to work.
Of all the things I thought of to say to you, perhaps the most important is this: Don't let your eyes betray you. By that I mean, make sure you see every ball into the glove before preparing to throw. Make sure you lock your eyes on the target and don't look up to find the baserunners. Don't follow the flight of the ball with your eyes. Stay focused on the target.
There will be much excitement and some perceived pressure during tryouts. Shut out everything but the ball. Rely on your mechanics. Do one thing at time. Catch, set your feet then throw it with your eyes locked on the target. The very basic things that you learned many years ago like catching grounders like an alligator or catching everything with two hands will serve you well this week.
(Just an aside, if was coaching a high school team and holding tryouts, I would base cuts on two observations: does he catch everything with two hands and does he pick up balls laying on the ground with his bare hand instead of his glove. Those two simple things will separate the players from the pretenders in a flash. Please do both, for me.)
Braves, I wish you all the best this week. I will have many sleepness nights until I know your fate. Whether you make varsity or not will not change the way I feel about you in anyway, shape or form. I know how good you are and if the rest of the world can't see it, too bad for them. When school ball season is over in a couple of months you will return to the Braves. You will once again ascend to that rarified air that very few baseball players get to breathe. Enjoy school ball, stay healthy and believe in yourself no matter what happens this week or next. I believe in you.
One last reminder: When you step on to the field this week or next for the first time, remember who you are. You are the best of the best. You are a Brave.
Coach Roberts
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