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The Allure and Frustration of
Little League
Reprinted by permission of Dan Woog
Dan is the author of the acclaimed book ``Jocks: True Stories of
America's Gay Male Athletes."
Check out Dan's extensive
Web site.
 The most difficult skill in any sport is hitting a baseball.
Not pole vaulting, although it takes a certain body type and adventurous spirit
to do it well. Forget golf; frustrating as it is, the ball just sits there until you’re
ready to whack it. And of course everyone remains deathly silent while you
swing. But hitting a baseball demands so many different elements. Incredible hand-eye
coordination, for one. Perfect technique, for another. Speed, strength, agility.
Intense concentration. Courage. And the ability to do all those things at once,
while everyone around you yells.
I had none of those talents. In a sport in which someone who fails 7
out of 10 times is considered a great success, I failed considerably more often. My
batting average was far lower than my IQ – and that’s after you apply a rather
liberal definition to "hits." Personally, I considered any contact with the ball –
including foul pops and dribblers right back at the pitcher – to be hits.
I was not Westport (Conn.) Little League’s poster boy.
Don’t get me wrong: I loved baseball. From the age of 8 to 12 – prime Little
League years – I lived, breathed and died the sport. I hauled my transistor radio
everywhere, afraid of missing one inning of a Yankees game. I memorized the
backs of baseball cards. Every spring night I raced down to the High Point Road
cul-de-sac to play hours of "running bases."
But my love of baseball was more theoretical than real. I liked the concept of the
game more than actually playing it. To fit modern-day slang to the ‘60s me, I
sucked.
Which is why, looking back, I can’t believe I played five years of Little League
baseball.
Peer pressure played a large part, I suppose. For weeks before tryouts, the
halls of Burr Farms Elementary School were filled with talk of the upcoming
season. Would the Cubs finally beat the Commandos? Could the Raiders
replace the pitchers they were losing to Babe Ruth? The United States could
have gone to war with Russia, and the boys at Burr Farms would have
continued chattering about the Rangers’ third base woes.
Once the season began, things got worse. Games were previewed, reviewed
and analyzed with an obsession that today is reserved only for important
matters like Rudy Giuliani’s marriage. Practices – practices! -- were scrutinized
just as closely, for clues to such mysteries as who would bat cleanup, and who
would be demoted all the way down the order to fifth.
I had a difficult time participating in such discussions, because I was
perpetually mired in the lower leagues. When my friends played on teams with
names like Red Sox and Giants – and, because those were actual Minor League
teams, they wore actual uniforms, including pants and socks – I was shunted
off to smaller fields, screwing up in the Cap League for laughably named teams
like Robins and Wrens. Worse than anything, we were in Little League but all we
got were those lousy T-shirts.
Then, as my friends advanced to the Majors, I was still mired in the Minors.
They enjoyed Westport’s equivalent of Camden Yards and Pac Bell Park, while I
toiled in our version of an elementary school playground. Come to think of it, it
was an elementary school playground.
I should note that this was in the days when Westport Little League had two
Major Leagues – cleverly called American and National – with eight teams in
each. As a 12-year-old, you had to be pretty poor not to make the Majors. I was,
and I did not.
But at least by then I had an actual uniform to wear around town, and I was
proud (or pathetic) enough to do so. I also wore it around the house. And to
bed. If peer pressure to have a uniform was the reason I played, I figured I might
as well get a full season’s use out of it.
I don’t recall my Little League years with much fondness. Tryouts seemed like
torture sessions. I forget how it worked – alphabetically? by skill or size? -- but I
always seemed to be called last, two hours after all the coaches wanted to go
home. They talked distractedly with each other, which actually was a blessing
whenever I let weak bunts dribble through my legs, which was on every ball.
The sky was always gray, the wind always blew, and I always wished I was
somewhere else.
As for the games themselves I don’t know which was worse, my fielding or
hitting skills, but I also do not remember being encouraged by any coaches to
improve. On the contrary, my one talent seemed to be getting walks – a
function more of my small strike zone than anything else – and most of my
on-deck instructions seemed to consist of the exhortation, "See if you can draw
a walk, son."
I also remember spending a lot of time in the dugout praying I would not get
asked to play any critical position, which was basically any spot other than right
field. Every coach seemed happy to oblige.
As my baseball "career" wound down, I was delighted to discover that only a
select few players moved on to Babe Ruth League. The brutal peer pressure to
play baseball diminished. At about the same time I discovered soccer.
Westport’s Parks and Recreation Department sponsored one of the first
suburban youth leagues in the country, and the game was better suited to me. It
is creative; there is non-stop action; soccer balls are quite a bit bigger than
baseballs, and the game is so fast that whenever a player messes up – and
everyone does, sooner or later – he immediately has a chance to redeem
himself.
I did not think about Little League baseball for years. Then the other day I
walked into Westport Pizzeria and saw three boys sitting on stools, eating
sloppily and talking noisily. That is, two were chattering; the third was silent,
almost pensive. I could not see their uniforms; I don’t know if they were
teammates, friends or brothers.
But suddenly I saw myself, over three decades ago, in the quiet boy.
"It’s only a game," I wanted to say to him.
Of course, I could not. I know now it is so much more.
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