Sea sons

It took a while to sink in.  For any number of reasons.  There were games underway.  These were all new diamonds.  We were (more than likely) losing.  They were the other team.  I have a day job.  I’m not the swiftest tool in the shed.  Add your own favorite, if you like.  Just saying.  It took a while to sink in. 

A walk on coaching gig at the high school level was beyond my conception.  So was a season starting in February.  But that’s what happened.  I thought I’d help out with a Little League or Pony League team over the summer, and take it from there.  Maybe find a 50+ league of guys who refuse to grow up and test out Dr. Hoffman’s throwing shoulder for real.  But someone told me the high school season was about to start and Tony was kind enough to take me on.  It’s not like he had other options, but that’s beside the point.

You can travel the globe, but the critical dimensions don’t change.  Sixty feet, six inches to home and ninety feet between the bases.  If either of those moved by a fraction, the game would be completely different.  Sure, the outfield dimensions and views change, but that’s the setting for the game, not the game itself.  Seaside’s setting took a little getting used to before it wasn’t a distraction.  Tucked into a sand dune, ocean just over there, and salt mist floating over the left field fence.  I spent so much time there, when I went back for Amanda’s graduation, the firm soil and grass of Iowa felt strange under foot. 

What felt only a little strange was the dugout.  It was closer to home plate than most others, so the view was a little different, looking outward.  Inward, it was all the same.  A bunch of characters, bodily noises and inside jokes.  All the belonging and comradeship of a tribal warparty fire, without the next day's pesky killing.  People paying several hundred dollars a night for hotel rooms to watch the sun set over the bay, and here I am.  In a concrete block dugout, with nine to eleven young men representing the sum total of Seaside High School ballplayers.  That took some getting used to, accustomed to twenty-two player rosters at the freshmen, sophomore and varsity levels, with another forty or fifty in each grade who tried out but didn’t make the team.  Playing varsity back home meant you were better than at least 150 other kids who wanted your spot.  Here, you walk on.  Just like I did. 

But the game was the same, as was the bell curve of talent and rhythms of practices and games, failures and successes.  Each team has its customs, and I was blessed to learn some new ones.  I was more blessed to spend a few months with a great group of kids, and get another front row, season pass to the best opera / theater / musical (bodily noises) there is.  Some say the game is slow, but that just means they have no idea of the constantly in motion strategy that’s at work for every pitch.  There’s two hundred or so of them each game, and every one of them is a piece of team performance art.  In the thick of it, it’s anything but slow.

So that might be another reason it took so long to sink in.  How and why this season was so special.  It hit me when a ball almost did.  As Assistant Coach, I was stationed at first base when we were on offense.  In between innings, an opposing first basemen dived in front of me to catch a ball coming in from the outfield.  “Sorry, skipper”, he said, apologizing for the center fielder’s inaccuracy.

Colin couldn’t call me “coach” and he didn’t want to call me “dad” in the dugout.  So he went with “skipper” or “skip”.  It was our inside joke.

At home in the dugout, and even more at home coaching first base.  High school firstbasemen are of a kind.  They’re tall, quite reliable with the glove, excellent hitters and often a pitcher or closer resting their rifle arm while not on the mound.  In short, they’re experienced, at-ease ballplayers with sufficient confidence to joke around as they work.  Of all the things I miss, the at-ease joking around is … well, one of them.

So, in this season of new and faraway, it was quite wonderful to hang out with the firstbasemen of the MBL.  Stay frosty.  See you next season.        

photo note:  Colin Malin, arm resting and otherwise chilling at first