Head Down

‘Let’s play ball,’ the umpire invites – an invitation that umpires have been extending to Little League players for fifty years now – and Dan Bouchard, York’s catcher and leadoff hitter, steps into the box. Roger goes to the set position and prepares to throw the first pitch of the 1989 State Championship game.

Five days earlier:

Dave and I take the Bangor West pitching staff up to Old Town. Dave wants them all to know how the mound feels when they come up here to play for real. With Mike Pelkey gone, the staff consists of Matt Ki

On the mound, Matt Ki

‘What are they going to take with them?’ I ask Dave. ‘When this is all over, what are they going to take with them? What difference does it make for them, do you think?’ The look on Dave’s face is surprised and considering. Then he turns back to look at Matt and smiles. ‘They’re going to take each other,’ he says.

It is not the answer I have been expecting – far from it. There was an article about Little League in the paper today – one of those think pieces that usually run in the ad-littered wasteland between the obituaries and the horoscopes. This one summarized the findings of a sociologist who spent a season monitoring Little Leaguers, and then followed their progress for a short time thereafter. He wanted to find out if the game did what Little League boosters claim it does – that is, pass on such old-fashioned American values as fair play, hard work, and the virtue of team effort. The fellow who did the study reported that it did, sort of. But he also reported that Little League did little to change the individual lives of the players. School troublemakers were still school troublemakers when classes started again in September; good scholars were still good scholars; the class clown (read Fred Moore) who took June and July off to play some serious Little League ball was still the class clown after Labor Day. The sociologist found exceptions; exceptional play sometimes bred exceptional changes. But in the main this fellow found that the boys were about the same coming out as they were going in. I suppose my confusion at Dave’s answer grows out of my knowledge of him – he is an almost fanatic booster of Little League. I’m sure he must have read the article, and I have been expecting him to refute the sociologist’s conclusions, using the question as a springboard. Instead, he has delivered one of the hoariest chestnuts of the sports world. On the mound, Matt continues to throw to J.J., harder than ever now. He has found that mystic place pitchers call ‘the groove,’ and even though this is only an informal practice session to familiarize the boys with the field, he is reluctant to quit.

I ask Dave if he can explain a little more fully, but I do so in a gingerly way, half expecting that I am on the verge of hitting a hitherto unsuspected jackpot of cliches: night owls never fly in the daytime; wi

‘Look at them,’ Dave says, still smiling. Something in that smile suggests he may be reading my mind. ‘Take a good look.’ I do. There are perhaps half a dozen of them on the bench, still laughing and telling junior high school war stories. One of them breaks out of the discussion long enough to ask Matt Ki

‘Look at those two guys,’ Dave says, pointing. ‘One of them comes from a good home. The other one, not so good.’ He tosses some sunflower seeds into his mouth and then indicates another boy. ‘Or that one. He was born in one of the worst sections of Boston. Do you think he’d know a kid like Matt Ki

‘But this changes all that,’ Dave says. ‘These boys have played together and won their district together. Some come from families that are well-to-do, and there’s a couple from families as poor as used dishwater, but when they put on the uniform and cross the chalk they leave all that on the other side. Your school grades can’t help you between the chalk, or what your parents do, or what they don’t do. Between the chalk, what happens is the kids’ business. They tend it, too, as well as they can. All the rest…’ Dave makes a shooing gesture with one hand. ‘All left behind. And they know it, too. Just look at them if you don’t believe me, because the proof is right there.’ I look across the field and see my own kid and one of the boys Dave has mentioned sitting side-by-side, heads together, talking something over seriously. They look at each other in amazement, then break out laughing.

‘They played together,’ Dave repeats. ‘They practiced together, day after day, and that’s probably even more important than the games. Now they’re going into the State Tournament.

They’ve even got a chance to win it. I don’t think they will, but that doesn’t matter. They’re going to be there, and that’s enough. Even if Lewiston knocks them out in the first round, that’s enough.

Because it’s something they did together between those chalk lines. They’re going to remember that. They’re going to remember how that felt.’

‘Between the chalk,’ I say, and all at once I get it – the pe