Right Name Will Make All The Difference

Allow me to introduce, to a breathless softball world, the Boo Radley’s Fightin’ Scouts.

Yes, I happen to be the manager of the Boo Radley’s Fightin’ Scouts, although I prefer to be called the Skipper, or the Ol’ Perfesser. We are a co-ed team in the Triple D division of the Spokane County Parks and Recreation League.

Maybe you’re thinking that Triple D doesn’t sound too impressive, considering that the classifications start at A (the best) and end at D (the least best). Well, let me tell you something, mister, Triple D is pretty darn good, because the way the classifications are set up, Triple D is superior to Double D and Single D.

So, we could be worse, and we probably will be by next year. But right now, it’s Opening Day, and optimism is always particularly virulent on Opening Day.

To understand the unique character of the Fightin’ Scouts, you must know our history. We started out more than 10 years ago as the Miller Masonry Bricks. Miller Masonry, unfortunately, went out of business a few years later, a circumstance, which, I swear, the team had nothing to do with. No one else would sponsor us, so up until this year we continued to call ourselves the Miller Masonry Bricks, despite the fact that Miller Masonry had gone the way of Studebaker.

This year, Andy Dinnison, the godlike owner of Boo Radley’s, made a visionary decision that will live forever in franchise mythology. He agreed to sponsor us, thus becoming our majority owner and general manager. We were ecstatic over this news, partly because Boo Radley’s perfectly suits the team’s personality, since it sells stuff like pink flamingos, lava lamps and boxing-nun puppets, and partly because Dinnison wrote us a sponsorship check, thus saving all of us upwards of $10 each.

In return for his generosity, we have taken to referring to Andy as “the Marge Schott of our franchise.” He has plans, he says, to acquire a big dog and make us kiss it.

I am doubly excited because now we get to wear Boo Radley’s T-shirts, which means that we will probably be the only team in the entire Triple D division that will take the field in baby-blue neon tie-dye.

Oh yes. Make no mistake. We will intimidate our opponents.

Maybe even our name will intimidate our opponents. Boo Radley’s derives its name from one of the characters in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” so we decided to call ourselves the Fightin’ Scouts, after Scout, the female narrator of the book. She is well-known for her feistiness. Unfortunately for our image, she is also well-known for being about 7.

The Fightin’ Scouts have already had a couple of practices, in which we have worked on things like hitting the cutoff person. “Hey, quit hitting the cutoff person,” I finally had to say.

Mainly, we use our practices for important things like coming up with nicknames. We have only one rule for nicknames. Players cannot choose their own nicknames - they must be bestowed. Thus, we already have one player named Possum Boy.

The other thing we have been practicing is chatter. At our first practice, our new third baseman kept shouting phrases such as “hard shot,” “down the line” and “nice snag” when she suddenly looked up and said, “Why do I feel the need to babble inanely after every hit?”

Because it’s chatter, that’s why, and at that moment I knew she was going to be a perfect Fightin’ Scout. We’re even thinking of nicknaming her Chowder, which is what “chatter” sounds like when you pronounce it with too many sunflower seeds in your cheek.

We must use caution with our chatter this year, however. The county has instituted a new “casual profanity” rule in which outs are levied whenever someone yells a naughty word. So I have instituted drills this spring in which we deliberately hit pop-ups, throw down the bat angrily and yell, “Gosh dang it all to Hades and back.”

As for our actual softball skills, we are already in mid-season form, which, for our team, is a bad sign.

But that doesn’t matter. Our goal this season is not to win the division, but to win the Sportsmanship Award, voted on by the other coaches. We’re going to earn this award by being polite, considerate and adult, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll bribe the other coaches.