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One More Game
Little League Fall ball season wraps up
by Joe Marchese
A strange thing happened this past Tuesday night. With 4 sons, 2 still in Little League, we spend endless days and nights, weekends, weekdays ferrying our kids to the many athletic events and other interests they want to pursue. At 50 years old, nothing surprises me anymore, but I was pleasantly surprised at the events at out last baseball game. This reinforced why we do what we do.
I have spent the last 2 years handling the business end of Little League, and doing some coaching. We started the 07 season in March with practice. Regular games began in mid- April and took us through the end of June; it's a brief but intense season. Then the allstars began, and this year Philipstown did extremely well - some teams played baseball until the end of July. Then, Fall Ball began with practices in late August.
This year, Paul Tringali, Ron Anderson and I took on the Junior League baseball team for fall ball. We play every weekend at the Robinson Lane complex in Wappingers. Fall Ball for the Jr. League is 12-15 yearolds; we had a great team - Dima Spinelli, Avery Anderson, Henry Heintzman, Matt Tringali, Joe Dulea, Christopher Marchese, Danny Kinaird, Andrew Balducci, TJ Brennan, Luke Solomon, Chris Delamater, and Ryan Kenna. Also, Steven Zalys and Matt Forlow played an important role - we would have forfeited a key game if they did not help out. The playoffs began last weekend. With games rained out Saturday, they began Sunday at 4 - under the lights.
We won, giving us the opportunity to play 2 more games: Monday and Tuesday for 1st and 2nd, or 3rd and 4th. We lost Monday, so we were left with one more day of baseball to play on Tuesday, October 30 at night, under the lights in Wappingers. It would be the last formal game for these kids, and the parents, until the season cranks back up again in April 2008. The kids were all there an hour before the game. Parents had to leave work early, get homework done and drag their kids to Robinson Lane for a 4:30 pre-game practice; just as we have been doing all year long.
At 5:30, game time, we realized that no one from the other team showed up. We inquired with the leagues representatives and found that the other team had a few "incidents" the night before and the coaches told their team not to show; they forfeited. When Paul and I explained this to the team, they could not understand why a team would not want to play their last game of the season. Instead of being happy to finish in 3rd place, they were angry not to have the opportunity to play! We spoke to the Dante from Wappingers Little League to see if he could call some kids to play, he offered to try. We also asked him to keep the lights on. It was 48 degrees and windy by this time.
At about 6:15, while we continued to practice, cars began pulling up to the field. Kids were jumping out of their parents' cars with sweatpants, pajama bottoms, shorts, sweatshirts and whatever they were wearing when they got the call - all had their gloves, bats, and cleats in hand. Dante called the kids on the teams that were eliminated from the playoffs and 9 of them jumped at the chance just to play one more game.
It was amazing to witness kids who don't know each other, borrowing bats and catcher's equipment and making fun of each others' sweatpants or pajama bottoms and just having fun playing ball. We let the kids coach each other, send in the signs, and coach the bases.
We parents were praying for this last game as the end of a really long season. But given the opportunity, the Wappingers parents packed their kids in the cars and brought them to the field on a moment's notice. I realized after watching these events unfold and the fun the kids had playing, that this is why we do what we do. If our kids are passionate about something, anything, it's our responsibility to support it. This time is was baseball, but it transcends to soccer, or karate, or playing an instrument, or a school play, or a college to attend. For someone who was waiting for the last game to finally come, when it did, I was sad to see it end.
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