Easy Out: My Time As A Little League Bust

When I was 10, I played little league baseball. And I use the term "played" very loosely; I owned a glove and I showed up to practice. At that age my physique would be accurately described as husky, and in no way suited for what I would call "being active." Now, surprisingly, I was a starter on the team. I like to think that this had more to do with my insane skills, and less to do with the fact that the team only had nine kids. Plus, I think my dad might have bought the team some new helmets at some point, so I'm sure the coach felt a little obligated to put me in. Honestly, I think the coach would have preferred to start only eight kids and let my chubby ass fester in the dugout. Seriously, the coach would have rather started Absence than me. I remember the practices were usually two hours of batting practice, fielding practice, throwing practice and running. Since I played right field, I usually spent time shagging balls for the coach as he hit them to the more talented outfielders. I also spent a lot of time chewing the laces out of my glove? I'm not sure why. Anyway, the worst days of the summer were game days. I hated games. For one, my old man treated every one of my games like it was Game Seven of the World Series, as well as acting like there were 90,000 people in the stands, rather than the usual ten. Also, I have terrible nerves. The thought of having to perform some kind of practiced task scared the shit out of me. And the coach thought I sucked; the whole fuckin team thought I sucked. And I did. I can remember our first game, one of the assistant coaches asked the head coach, "Where do we put Eric?" I was looking up at the two of them like a dumbass no doubt. The coach looked at me, and without even trying to hide his words from me he replied, "Have the little pork belly play right." The assistant coach (yes, we had assistant coaches for a nine-man little league roster. What kind of man volunteers to be an assistant coach? I have to believe there is an alterior motive there [see yesterday's post]) kneels down, looks me square in the eye and says, "We need you in right field." Now, that is a very accurate statement. They did need me in right field, otherwise we would have to forfeit. Only nine guys, remember? I grabbed my glove, put on my cap and ran into right field with the opening riff of John Fogerty's "Centerfield" playing in my head. Right field in little league might as well have been the fucking Gobi Desert, because nothing came out there. I might have fielded two or three balls the whole season. Of course, when I was in right field the center fielder, first baseman and second baseman all expanded their coverage on the field. I only had a thin strip of grass to actually defend. Fuck, I hated it out there. My time consisted of praying to Jesus Christ Almighty that a ball did not get hit to me, and being strangely jealous of the infield meetings on the pitcher's mound. It is a huge regret in my life that I was never asked to join those meetings. I would be standing in right field, my teeth buried into the laces on my glove, and I would stare enviously as the infielders all jogged to the mound to go over how to handle a batter or a runner. "What are they doing?" I would whisper to myself. "Fuck, that looks awesome up there. I wish I was up there. I wonder what they are talking about. Oh, they're laughing. Joey must have cracked a joke. He's always cracking jokes. Coach looks serious. Did he point to me? He pointed at me. Is he shaking his head? There they go, laughing again. That Joey is a real card." Batting was even worse for me. There were two things that I absolutely did not have when I was ten, pubes and reflexes. I knew the pubes would come with time, the reflexes...I'm still waiting on those. I actually stepped into a pitch a few times just to get on base. And even if I could avoid getting hit by a pitch, I just stayed in the batter's box and let the ball hit me so I could go to base. I'm sure everyone watching, including my dad, thought I was at least mildly retarded. And what was my reward for all this? The humiliation, the razzing, the bruises, all the work with no payoff? How about a Capri Sun and a bag of Skittles after each game? Man, fuck John Fogerty.

The Moore You Know: Last night I watched a porno called All Internal Interracial Cheerleader ASS-ault. It was pretty good, but I thought the book was better.

© Eric Moore - 2010