Fightin’ Scouts Field Antics Do Coach Proud

The main thing wrong with American sports coverage today is: not enough stories about the Boo Radley’s Fightin’ Scouts.

The Fightin’ Scouts are the co-ed county league softball team of which I am the coach, although I insist on being called the Skipper. We get no ink whatsoever.

I have searched in vain through the international newspaper archives and the Lexis-Nexis research databases without finding one single mention of the Fightin’ Scouts this year. Our team lacks contract disputes, assault convictions, Rodman-like purple hair and (to my personal knowledge) nipple rings.

So, what does it take to get a mediocre C-division softball team into the nation’s media consciousness?

An obsessed coach who just happens to have a Saturday column. That helps.

Actually, softball is a common experience for many, many of my fellow Spokanites and Spokanettes. Thousands of us are, this weekend, embroiled in the high drama of county league tournament play. So I feel I am writing about the shared experience of the universal human condition, which I try to write about whenever convenient.

Besides, I want to keep you up to date. I thrilled literally dozens of loyal readers last year with tales of the Fightin’ Scouts’ 1995 season, in which two players broke ankles, one player pulled both of his groins, and the team vehicle, as well as the entire team, blew a head gasket.

I am pleased to announce that, as of this writing, the 1996 Scouts have not made one single trip to the emergency room.

Yet we have had our share of Boo Radley’s-style mishaps. In one game, our star pitcher was covering home plate when the opposing player slid in. For some reason, the opposing guy slid too soon and stopped six feet short of home plate, stretched out headfirst, arms pointing to the plate like a diver.

Our pitcher, who already had the ball, stared at the guy for a few seconds to make sure the guy had come to a full and complete stop. Finally, our pitcher lunged at the guy, who rolled out of the way. For the next 10 seconds, these two players rolled around on the base path, the runner making swimming motions toward home plate while our guy kept trying to pounce on him. When the dust cleared, our pitcher had finally tagged the guy out, his claw marks just inches from the plate.

It was a typical C-division feat of athleticism, but here’s what makes it a typical Fightin’ Scout moment. Our pitcher wrenched his back during this slow-motion comedy and had to leave the game.

Except for that, it has been a healthy year for the Scouts. We have had some mishaps involving equipment, however. In the middle of an inning, as I was playing shortstop, somebody asked me why my glove was giving the Vulcan handsignal for “Live long and prosper.”

I help up my glove, and saw that it was true. Then, to my alarm, the fingers flopped around and actually flipped me the bird.

I realized that the stitching had come out of my glove, causing the fingers to go wacky. This, of course, explained the eight errors I had made that inning, twice as many as normal.

This season was another excellent one for nicknames. In addition to last year’s roster of Dusty, Doc, Nellie, Dixie, Chowder and Big Timber, we added Sparky and Amadeus to the lineup. We arrived at the latter nickname after early experiments with Chopin and Beethoven, since this particular player happens to be our token concert pianist.

We must be the only team in the C division with a concert pianist on the roster, although frankly, this made me a nervous wreck. I spent the whole season worrying that she would hurt her hands while, I don’t know, lunging at some guy stuck facedown in the dust six feet short of home plate.

In terms of win-loss, the Fightin’ Scouts had a highly mediocre season in which we won a few and lost a few and were uncertain about others. Still, we were good enough to please our beloved and eccentric owner, Andy Dinnison of Boo Radley’s (your Spokane lava lamp superstore), who was quoted as saying, “I’m so thrilled, I’m selling these losers to Ken Behring.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review