As it has every year, the Little League World Series has signaled the impending demise of the summer as well as all summer-related activities that have so mercilessly wedged themselves between my creativity and my blogging time. Each night, the boys of summer race to finish their seasons before the chill rains of fall arrive. After sacrificing my body on the softball field every day to help keep my men’s league team’s playoff hopes alive, I’ve spent my nights watching 10-12-year-old Little Leaguers pour their hearts onto a smaller field to help keep their dreams alive.
In an effort to keep this experience as rewarding as possible, I’ve done my best to avoid all the swearing, fighting, and anger that nearly always accompanies a men’s beer-drinking softball league; I’m there to have fun and play an innocent and beautiful game I’ve loved since my Little League days. And so, it’s disheartening to learn of recent Little League events that have shown a loss of that very same purity I’ve tried so desperately to recapture…
In a 9 and 10 year old Utah league, the team playing defense needed one more out to win the championship by one run. All that stood between them and their (read: their coach’s) dream, was the opposing team’s best hitter. But rather than take the opportunity to teach his young team about courage and playing their best, the coach decided to teach his team about strategy that’s only appropriate at a much higher level of play. He instructed his pitcher to intentionally walk the best hitter to face the worst hitter: a cancer survivor with a shunt in his brain. The boy struck out while the fans booed the pitcher, and the winning team’s coach got his trophy.
A Little League New England game between Vermont and New Hampshire also made headlines thanks to more controversial coaching. With his team up by a run and one out away from winning the game, the VT coach realized that one of his players had not yet batted; a rule violation that guaranteed a forfeit. Understanding that the only way for his team to win the game was if NH tied it and forced extra innings, he instructed his pitcher to intentionally throw wildly to let NH score. The NH coach quickly realized what VT was trying to do and promptly instructed his team to lose the game at all costs by swinging and intentionally missing the wild pitches; ignoring VT’s third baseman who stopped wiping away the tears from his eyes long enough to beg the NH coach to “please let him hit it.” NH struck out, lost the game, ultimately won by forfeit, and now stands two wins away from a Little League World Series title.
It’s sad to think that the once-in-a-lifetime/rewarding memories these kids will take away from this summer will most likely be overshadowed by the instances when the adults in their lives chose to manipulate their experiences by injecting the kind of reprehensible morals that only adults are capable of displaying. Because of this, I’ve found myself thankful for my own less-tainted childhood memories.
As a child of the 80s, my memories, at first glance, are carbon copies of everyone else’s: Little League, We are the World, Hot Wheels, Swatches, Transformers, Bill Buckner, Bill Cosby, MTV, Reagan, the Challenger, Fraggle Rock, etc. Although it’s slightly comforting to think about how I’m connected with millions of people through these memories, as an individualist, however, I’m also alarmed. Didn’t I have any unique experiences? Isn’t there a memory that only I can claim as my own? I’ll worry about that in another entry; for now though, I’ll focus on one other memory from my childhood: the Choose Your Own Adventure books.
For those of you who lived in a cave, or maybe Vermont, the Choose Your Own Adventure books led readers like myself through an exciting plot full of twists M. Night Shymalan could only dream of imagining and at nearly every turn, when the characters were faced with an important choice, the reader decided what to do next. Go to p. 47 if you choose to fight the rabid 1200-pound dog. Flip back to p. 39 if you want to escape in a helicopter with the cute girl. And just like in life, the first instinct, the seemingly obvious choice, isn’t necessarily the right one. If you turned to p. 39, you discovered you crashed the helicopter and became trapped in quicksand. If you cheated (and we all did) and then flipped to p. 47 anyway, the 1200-pound dog wasn’t rabid at all…just a lonely dog wanting to play fetch who ultimately led you to safety. Like snowflakes, no two Choose Your Own Adventures were alike, and so, in a way, I can consider these books to be my own unique childhood memory. And as has been the case in most of my entries, this revelation is directly related to the most recent events of my life. If you disagree, your helicopter has crashed and you are stuck in quicksand. If you agree, flip to the next paragraph…
When I was 4-months-fresh out of college, I accepted a unionized position at the Evil Empire, earning more than twice as much money as I had ever made in my life. (Of course, that’s not saying much when you consider my paper route/work study/sandwich shop/telemarketer/camp counselor background.) Within the first two hours of employment, the union representative was smothering me like a toddler on her newborn sister, and I was ordered to join the union and pay dues for this representation. Always the one to respond to orders as if they were given on Opposite Day, the adventure I chose was to join the union “under protest”; although represented by the union, I gave up my vote and voice in exchange for a world without dues. (At 22, I considered getting out of paying money to strangers as a wise financial decision.)
Through numerous twists and turns I won’t discuss, it can be argued that my refusal to join the rabid-dog union led me safely through the 5 or 6 Lay-Off Marches to my current and much more English-degree-appropriate Evil Empire job. Like Marty saving the peeping-Tom George McFly, this decision made in the blink of an eye changed the course of my history. I won’t argue that my snap judgment was better than a carefully planned decision, however. Stated simply, the down-the-long-road fortunate effects of my choice were pure dumb luck and like the former Lay-Off March victims, my fortunes can change on a dime.
And so, yesterday, as I sat there and listened to the familiar “in an effort to remain competitive” speech, and quickly realized that I was most likely one year away from my very own Lay-Off March, I couldn’t help but think about those Choose Your Own Adventure books. With the nine lives I’ve lived at the Evil Empire, I feel as though I’ve already flipped to p. 39 to discover the helicopter crash and now I have the chance to take what I know and run to the rabid dog of p. 47. Like the kids of Little League who still have a chance to learn the values of honor and respect and fair play, I still have a chance to leave this place on my terms and discover new adventures. And in doing so, I’ll remember the valuable life lesson inadvertently provided by one more Little League team as it traveled home from a baseball tournament. When the team passed a kiosk selling popcorn, one player excitingly said, “Oh, popcorn! Let’s come back!” Another player responded that they couldn’t come back, “because we’re only 10 for one year.”
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