It Ain’t Over Till The Last Girl Swings
This column is dedicated to all youth-league umpires who take their avocation seriously, officiating games with passion, precision and panache. Hats off, for nurturing the can-do, you-tried spirit these young souls need to succeed later, on and off the field.
A whirlwind of dust swirled past third base toward home and over the backstop. From the cloud stepped a tall 9-year-old wearing a gold jersey. In one hand, she carried a shiny red bat, which was heavier than any other in the dugout and rather new.
She was the division’s best cleanup hitter, but there were two outs already and they were playing for the championship.
It didn’t look good and she knew it. Her team was down by two points and this was their last atbat. But she ground the toe of one cleat into the dirt anyway, scooping out a toehold. She took some practice swings, then raised the red bat high. Out in the field, a platoon of little girls, ages 7, 8 and 9, hunkered down and waited.
Thirty feet away from home plate, wearing a blue uniform, stood the division’s fastest pitcher, a girl with a long, dark braid who hurls fireballs on command. She’d been showing the slightest signs of tiring, which would be normal after six innings. But seeing one of her toughest opponents seemed to enliven her somehow. Her dark eyes shone and she rolled the ball over and over between the spongy pads of her fingertips.
A moment later, the batter froze and the pitcher nodded. The crowd of normally boisterous parents fell silent.
To understand the tension of this moment, you need some history. You need to know that every time these teams met, the games were close and could have gone either way. You need to know that, for whatever reason, these two teams have considered themselves rivals, although no one could ever sit down and explain, rationally, exactly why. You need to know that this is the time of year when youth-league championships are decided.
And so it was here: If the gold team won, the season belonged to them. If the blue team won, that would force a final championship game, gold vs. blue again. The next day.
It also is important to know that the gold team had claimed a one-point lead in the game’s opening moments, but watched that disintegrate with about 30 minutes left to play. By the fifth inning, the gold team’s chances looked hopeless. The score was 3-1, blue, with just a few minutes of play remaining.
And then the wind shifted and something happened. Just as the gold team’s ace pitcher shut down the batter to end the fifth, the umpire looked at his watch and surprised everyone.
“Three minutes left in the game,” he shouted, shaking his head and smiling. “We have a sixth inning.”
“Come on in, girls,” the gold team’s manager shouted. “We’ve got another chance.”
By the time the girl with the shiny red bat got up, there were two outs and two runners on base. The score was frozen at 3-1, but the batter was the goahead run if miracles were to happen.
The dust swirled up and over the backstop, but the pitcher with the long, dark braid seemed to notice none of this. Her concentration was so intense, the world had been reduced to nothing but her and her windup.
The first pitch came in like a train. The batter swung, but too late. The second pitch came in even faster, and the batter missed that one, too.
“If she keeps pitching like that, she deserves to win,” someone on the gold side muttered.
Tears filled the batter’s eyes because she’s still of the age where she’s too hard on herself. Her coach called a timeout and walked out to the plate. She whispered something to the batter, something about her stance. The batter nodded, then nodded again.
Meanwhile, the pitcher paced. She wanted to close this game down, and do it now.
The batter assumed her stance and the fireballpitcher wound up. She threw a wild one way high and then another that ate the dust. Two more balls followed. In this age group, four balls means the batter gets to hit off a tee. The wind, it seemed, was changing again.
The fielders moved out so far it looked as though they’d relocated to the next county. But it didn’t really matter, and everyone kind of knew it. One swipe at the ball by the girl with the shiny red bat and that baby was gone on a vacation to somewhere out in right-center field. The outfielders sprinted after it, but never had a prayer. As the players on the gold bench screamed with abandon, two runners came in followed by the home-run hitter.
The gold team won 4-3, but no one will remember that for long. What the 24 girls on those teams will remember is that one team lost despite all promise of winning and another won despite lost hope.
On some days, anything can happen.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Diana Griego Erwin McClatchy News Service