Glad he didn’t call time

In 1980 I was coaching the Shadle team (Barstone) on which my younger brother, Bradd, was an All-League player, and Mark Rypien was playing.

Two stories come to mind regarding that campaign. Rypien was in a batting slump. We were playing the North Central team and I am coaching third base.

Rypien takes his turn at bat and I watch the right-handed hitter step into the left side of the box. Having never seen him do this I contemplated calling a timeout to ask what he was doing. Then, knowing Rypien (he was a natural at everything), I decided to leave him alone.

He promptly singled, and went 2 for 3 batting left-handed this game. Now out of his slump he returned the next game to batting right-handed.

Only Mark!

The other story speaks to the “Fat Lady singing.” We were playing a Valley team in the playoffs, and losing by three runs in our last at-bat.

The Legion commissioner at the time walked over to their coach (a Legion legend for many years) and asked him (in front of me, as they were in the third-base dugout) which dugout he wanted the next game.

Were I that coach, I would have told the commissioner to go away until the game was over. Instead he made his decision, we promptly scored four runs, then eliminated them.

There is something to be said for some of the superstitions of the game.

In 1970 I was playing for Shadle Center and we traveled to Coeur d’Alene to play a doubleheader at McEwen Field.

Although their teams are easily on a par with Spokane schools now, it wasn’t so back then (we did, in their defense, have a very good team). We went in expecting to sweep, which we did. As we were pretty cocky, with a former pro ball player as our coach (Jack Parks), we could have a bit “too much fun” for other teams’ liking.

CdA had a catcher whom was our favorite target. During this doubleheader two separate stories come to mind, both centering on their catcher.

The first incident happened early in the first game. We had nobody on base, but we were riding the catcher (because he allowed it to be fun). In concert our dugout shouts, “He’s going” (as if someone was stealing second). He enabled us by promptly throwing a strike … to center field. Certainly drew some hoots from us after that.

In the second game the same catcher (in his defense, he was one of their best players) approached our dugout chasing a foul popup. As he closed in on the catch, he tossed his mask, as taught, away from the catch itself.

Of course, it landed at the foot of our dugout. We hid the mask, which stopped play for several minutes as the frustrated catcher finally figured we had it and cried to the ump to make us give it back.

The ump did exactly that, and told us, any more shenanigans he would forfeit the game in favor of the home team.

We quieted down for a play (total silence). Then Parks yells at us to “Shake it up in here”! Which sent us back into normal mode. The ump never followed through on his threat and we completed the sweep.