On February 4th, when Coronavirus only lived on distant cruise ships and foreign lands, we held our first Little League practice of the season. Like six previous seasons, I was the manager of my son’s team. I gathered the RBVLL Red Sox around the pitcher’s mound and we introduced ourselves. I gave my usual opening speech and stressed how the response “Yes Coach” almost never gets a player into trouble. After the introductions and housekeeping, we had a tremendous first practice.
A month later we won our first game on opening night. A few days later, on March 11th, we were scheduled to play the Padres. Unfortunately, there was just enough rain the night before and the fields were too soggy to play on. A friend and fellow board member was the one who went down to the fields to make the call on postponing those Wednesday games. Had he known what was going to happen in the near future, I think he might have let us play and risk tearing up the field.
The very next day Little League International recommended the suspension of baseball activities. A week later California’s stay-at-home order was issued. Before you knew it, we were dedicated home schoolers, washing off our groceries and growing out our hair. On my many trips from the home office to the kitchen, I would glance at the baseball schedule my wife had posted on the refrigerator. It was torture to look at the slate of unplayed games as March turned into April and then May, which likely increased the stress eating trips to the fridge. But the writing on the fridge, and the wall, was clear: this season was lost.
It also wasn’t just any season, it was Ryan’s twelve-year old season. Part graduation, part quinceañera–being twelve in Little League is the last time you can play in the “Majors” division and be the bigger kid on the smaller field. It’s the year dads and players can entertain the pipe dream about a trip to Williamsport to play in the Little League World Series. A league our size doesn’t really have a chance to play South Korea on ESPN, but as long as your son is playing Little League baseball, there’s a part of his childhood that’s still intact.
I was attached to all of it–a second year in the majors, season-ending yearbook photo tributes, a possible all-star run beyond our district. But with no practices to go to, the catcher’s gear and bucket of balls gathered dust in the garage. Back during “flatten the curve,” our team should have been crushing the curve ball. Coronavirus had left a baseball-shaped hole in my heart.
When California modified its stay-at-home order in June, it allowed for children to participate in stable groups of 12. (“Stable” obviously referring to constant participation, not the emotional state of the players and coaches.) So roughly three months after our rainout against the Padres, the Red Sox season lived on. As Ryan I drove to our first practice, there was a weird mood in the car. Perhaps Ryan thought this ship had sailed and without a game on the schedule I could feel his nearly teenage brain asking, “Why are we doing this?”
We have family saying that was coined at the beginning of the pandemic: “This is the mac-n-cheese.” Back when groceries were scarce, Jenni, the mom of two picky eaters, couldn’t always find the exact brand and type of boxed macaroni and cheese preferred by the delicate palettes at our house. But given what was going in the world, we wanted to stress that dinner was not the time to bemoan the comparative merits of processed cheese and elbow macaroni. People are sick, hospitals are filling up, yet you are healthy and there is food on the table. This isn’t the mac-n-cheese you like? This is the mac-n-cheese.
For the Red Sox, baseball practice with COVID protocols–masks for coaches, temperature checks, and regular hand sanitizing–was our “mac-n-cheese.” Like so many things in 2020, it wasn’t the version we wanted, but it was the version we could get. Once practices started, any hesitancy and resistance on my son’s part faded away. It was great to see the players and even from a safe distance of six feet away I could tell everyone had grown. Warm-up catch became a great vehicle for the boys to catch up on Fortnite, professional sports, and Pokemon Go. They were desperate for socialization; I think they could have spent the entire two-hour practice throwing with a partner and gossiping as a team. After a few of these practices, the effect on Ryan was obvious. Having his socialization well refilled, he came home from each practice with an abundance of energy and excitement. His eyes were brighter and his smile wider.
In any other season, I’d be running a tighter ship and would have a written-out practice plan. This summer, we didn’t run as many first and third drills as we could have, but we did have fun. Filling a youth sports practice with scrimmaging can be lazy as a coach, but I think amidst COVID you’re allowed to just “roll out the ball” and let the kids play a bit. At least, that’s always been my pandemic coaching philosophy.
Like Shoeless Joe in Field of Dreams, “We got tired of just practicing. We decided to get some more players so we could have real games.” Well, not exactly. In September, the league allowed for some inter-squad scrimmages with some modifications. No one could use the dugouts; the players sat in the stands on socially distanced marked seats. There was no scoreboard either; the parents had to watch from the parking lot. This was the mac-n-cheese.
On a warm October night, one of our players gave us a moment to remember. Down 0-2 to one of the better pitchers in the league, our first baseman put a swing on a fastball. From the third base coaching box, I swiveled my head and watched and it carry. The left fielder ran towards the wall tracking its flight as the ball confidently sailed over the left-center fence.
I turned back and looked at the rest of team. In unison, they leapt out of their seats in complete jubilation. Hands stretched to the sky as they erupted in deafening cheers. It was like they just punched their ticket for Williamsport. Their reaction was so pure and in that moment, there was no COVID, there was no lockdown. There was the spectacle of sport and twelve-year olds allowed to play the game that they loved. The boys of summer had given us a night in October to remember.
Shortly after that first practice back in February, we were around the batting cages getting some swings in. At that point during the pre-season, I couldn’t help comparing the Red Sox to last year’s Mariners, a star-studded bunch of 12 year-olds deep in pitching and defense. The comparison made me worry about this group’s viability. That night, I was starting to see the pieces fitting into place. I turned to one our dads, a fireman who would help out whenever he could. I turned to him and causally observed in a moment of clarity, “I think we’re a pretty good team…”
“You’re damn right we are!” His indignation caught me by surprise.
I may have had more coaching experience, but he had enough confidence for the whole team. Unfortunately, we’ll never know how the official season would have played out. Who would have been our third catcher? Who would surprised us on the mound? Which newcomer would get the big hit in the unlikeliest of moments? I’d like to think of our team like the 1994 Montreal Expos, a team on the way to a championship whose season was shortened by circumstances beyond their control.
Our final “game” was on chilly night the week before Thanksgiving. After the game parents lingered in the parking lot. For some of us it might be our last time there and there was a “last day of school” kind of feel. There were no yearbooks to sign, but Ryan posed for pictures and collected his friends’s Nintendo Online accounts so they could play Super Smash Bros. together. Our minivan was the last car to leave the lot, and Ryan and I went through our routine closing up. After driving up the hill, we hopped out of the car, each grabbed one side of the gate, and walked them together before affixing the combination lock. As we stood on the outside of the gate, the lock clicking into place signified closing a chapter in our lives. I hugged him and told him how much these times meant to me. He looked up at me and his thoughtful response let me know he felt exactly the same way:
“Dad, can I use your phone to play Pokemon Go?”
“Sure.”
