Read Online Parts & Labor by Mark Gimenez - Free Book Online

his mom
thought baseball would be a good developmental experience.
    "Ronald!"
Coach yelled. "The game's not up there! It's down here!"
    Joey
in center field, Cole on first, and Mitch at short were good athletes who knew
how to play baseball. Skipper at third wasn't as good, but he tried to make up
for his lack of skill with enthusiasm. He chanted at every batter on every
pitch: "Come on batter batter batter, swing batter!" Which drove
the batters nuts. And me, too. After six innings of that, I wanted to clock
Skipper with an aluminum bat.
    Osvaldo
at second stood just over four feet tall and wasn't as good as his dad thought
he was, but with a name like Osvaldo Rodriguez—his dad called him
"O-Rod"—he figured he was a sure bet for the pros.
    Curtis
behind the plate was a C student so he didn't think twice about blocking pitches
in the dirt, and Cade on the mound was the star of the team. Mom said he was a prima donna, which means he thinks he's special. He did. He fussed at the
umpires if they called balls when he was pitching and strikes when he was
batting, he griped at us for committing errors and ruining his win-loss record,
and he wore a cup that was way too big for an eleven-year-old kid. But he was
the best pitcher and hitter on the team, and he was Coach Slimes' son, so we
had to put up with his All-Star attitude.
    But
that's little league.
    Outside
the fences, the dads paced back and forth, coaching from the sidelines—"Come
on, Johnny, you're killing me, son! You gotta turn on that ball!" The
moms sat in the stands drinking their mocha-coca lattes and chatting or texting
on their cell phones, but every other game you'd get the helicopter mom who
yelled out to her son, "Ricky! Let me know if you need help with your cup!"
Funny, sure (for everyone except Ricky), but that kind of thing could scar a
kid for life. Anyway, the stuff going on outside the fences was often more
entertaining than that going on inside the fences.
    That's
little league, too.
    Kids
my age and skill level—in the 10/11 rec fall ball instructional league—we
played "daddy ball." All the coaches were the players' dads—the dads
coached so their kids could play. Most, though, didn't have a clue how to instruct
in the fundamentals of baseball since their only prior baseball experience had
been daddy ball when they were kids; but they coached so their sons would get
to play their favorite positions even if they weren't any good. (Mom called it "nepotism," but I didn't know what that meant; all I knew was that I was
stuck playing outfield.)
    Anyway,
my dad had been our coach before he deployed. He had played baseball in
college, so he taught us the correct fundamentals. And he knew that you
couldn't master the fundamentals of baseball at ten. So he didn't go ballistic
when we committed errors, which was often. There were a lot of errors in
little league. If I let a grounder go through my legs or dropped a pop fly, he
never yelled at me. Baseball was about having fun. He would always say,
"It's not about winning, boys, it's about having fun. Let's have some fun
today." I always had fun when he coached.
    Baseball
wasn't as much fun without my dad.
    It
was so weird to look over to our dugout and not see him standing there. He had
coached every one of my games the last three years except for a couple when he
had to put out a burning house or rescue a utility worker from a telephone pole,
which I understood. I mean, saving a house or the telephone guy was more
important than watching me strike out three times.
    But
Coach Slimes now stood where my dad had stood. He was wearing a white Dodgers
jersey that was tight around his big belly and stretch knit coach's shorts that
dropped down in the back and exposed his crack, which sort of made me nauseous.
(Mom said he looked like a plumber in a baseball uniform.) Coach wanted
desperately to win the rec league championship, as if putting the cheap little
trophy on his mantel would make his