Richie

Richie saw me as a catcher. His imagination must’ve been keener than his eye for talent. Squatting behind home plate was the last place on the diamond I wanted to be. I wasn’t built like a backstop, and I didn’t have a rifle of a throwing arm. The equipment seemed bulky and stifling. And playing catcher appeared to be an ideal way to get hurt, which I tried to make a point of avoiding.

This was my third and last year of Little League. I’d spent the first on a Minor League team where we had only hats and t-shirts, not real uniforms. Batters often got four or five strikes instead of three, and any ball hit in fair territory had a solid chance of becoming a homerun.

The following year I tried out again and was chosen by a bona fide Little League team. I would wear the maroon pinstripes of the Giants. They were a perennially competitive team, with a manager and bench coach who were bent on winning. They were tough, focused, and frequently mean. They were impatient with skill deficiencies, but uninterested in developing raw talent. They didn’t like weakness.

Because of my asthma I carried an inhaler with me in case I started wheezing. It didn’t occur to me until too late that I might as well have written “BENCH ME” across my forehead in red magic marker. The only action I saw that year was in the last inning or two of a game. When I did get to play, it was in right field: Little League’s dreaded badlands of boredom.

We lost the championship that year to the other winning-is-everything team, the Tigers. Our catcher, who was the bench coach’s son, threw a tantrum in the dugout. I remember being intrigued and confused by the severity of his reaction. It mirrored his father’s, except that the dad managed to contain his tears.

One of the best pieces of news I ever received was finding out that the manager and coach were quitting after that season. Many of our starters had to move on too because they were heading into junior high. Our star catcher was one of them, and nobody had been trained to take his place. We were left with a significant hole in our lineup.

During the off-season, Richie signed on to take over managing the team. He couldn’t have had a more fundamentally different approach to the game. His primary goal was for everyone on the team to make a contribution. He taught us the game, helped us develop our skills, and shaped us into ballplayers. Underscoring everything was the high value he placed on good sportsmanship.

It turned out that Richie was right about me; I was a catcher. I developed a real affection for the position. It didn’t take long for me to see that the catcher got to be involved in every single play on the field. The perspective from behind the plate was unequaled. I loved discovering the idiosyncrasies of different batters, and moving the target to where I thought they were least likely to connect with the ball.

I especially enjoyed the time-honored baseball tradition of chatter. My variation on the theme was to speak softly to the batter, just loud enough for him to hear. I’d narrate the moment, describing his nervousness and his uncertainty of whether or not a strike was on its way. Would he be able to hit it? Probably not. Maybe the pitch would hit him… When he seemed out of sync and edgy I’d shout, “Swing!” and he’d lunge for one in the dirt. What could be more fun than that!

Like most boys, I wanted to hit homeruns. I wanted to swing for the fences from way down on the knob of a big log of a bat. But Richie envisioned me hitting for average. He helped me modify my stance and my grip on the bat. It turned out that he was right about that too. I hit zero homeruns that year, but I hit safely 29 times in 61 at-bats.

The fact that I remember those numbers so clearly might be symptomatic of glory-days-syndrome, but it’s mostly a testament to the impact of being seen in a hopeful light. Richie imagined my potential and coached me toward it.

He did the same for the rest of my teammates, and we deepened our love for the game together. We lost the championship to the Tigers again, but it didn’t ruin our lives. It was a great year to wear maroon pinstripes.