I wonder whatever happened to...

From time to time,  if I am in conversations with some of my former players and fellow coaches of the, this rhetorical question will be posed...

"I wonder whatever happened to..."

As you can imagine, during 10 years of youth baseball, coaches and players encountered a number of colorful characters. Here are some of the ones who stand out...

That's Strike One...
One of the first umpires we encountered was a young man who was finishing out the season officiating games in one of our younger leagues. After the season ended, he left town to enlist in the military.

When he called balls and strikes, the first strike call was always announced accordingly: "That's strike one." For the second, he'd croon "Striiiiiiiike Twoooooo." And if he punched out the batter, it was "Strike three outta deh!"

It's funny the unique things you remember. I wonder whatever happened to him.

We'll just leave, then...
One weekend, we were playing in a tournament away from our ballpark. For whatever reason, one family was a no show for all of the games. There was no prior notification they were double-booked or had a previous engagement. They just ghosted us. We made do. But, the situation was perplexing.

In retrospect, I have concluded the dad must not have approved of the current leadership of the team even if we were winning games and racking up pennants.

Back at our ballpark the next week, my coaching partner and I agreed that if the kid came to the next game, he would have to start the game on the bench. If there were some sort of family scheduling snafu, we didn't know about it ahead of time. And, it wouldn't be fair to all the other boys who worked hard and sacrificed during the previous weekend to just brush it off. 

It's not like we'd permanently bench Junior. He just couldn't start that one game.

I had a work-related conflict that night, so I wasn't going to be at the field by game-time. Thus, I didn't make out the starting line-up. But coach did just what we had agreed upon. He turned in the line-up. And Junior was on the bench. I walked up just as the dad said to my assistant, in a huffy voice, "Well, if you don't need Junior, we'll just leave, then."

They left the ballpark and kept going. Still haven't heard from them. I wonder whatever happened to them...

Yogi
Early on, one of my coaching colleagues was a really great guy who had a really bad habit of bungling any challenging name. Jones or Johnson? No problem. Multiple syllables? Anything goes. 

Once I heard him mispronounce a kid's last name to the kid himself. The young player told his coach, "That's not my last name?" Coach said "That's not your last name? What is your last name?"

Moments like that were why we lovingly called him Yogi. Cash...cuz it's just as good as money. 

I wonder how he's doing.

Rocky Hill
Then, when I was league prez, I met my counterpart from a near-by ballpark. Similar community. Not too far away. We had a lot of chats back and forth about common challenges, issues and triumphs.

Eventually, we agreed to do a series of "interleague games." Some games were played at their ballpark (Rocky Hill) and we hosted others. No extra charge to the families. Just extra baseball - a true win-win. We always liked our interactions with the guys from our neighboring league. I wonder how they all are doing.

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I also wonder whatever happened to some of the other colorful characters we encountered - hard working guys who took care of our fields and got them ready for play. Or the parks and rec staff member who came through, routinely, to empty trash, replace fixtures and pick up spare buckets of balls to keep them from being swiped. Or his boss from downtown who I worked with frequently when I was league prez. I also wonder about the guy who was our supervisor of umpires. Talk about a colorful character! But a great guy who always had our back(s).

I think about lots of those people from time to time. Pleasant memories. Hope everyone's doing fine.

Oh, and speaking of umpires. Here's one last vignette.

But don't touch him...
One umpire we occasionally encountered had very specific rules. You might say he was a little on the prickly side.

He didn't want any parents sitting behind him while he called balls and strikes. He'd make them move lawn chairs if they were seated in a zone from just to his left to just to his right. 

And you couldn't touch him. So, there'd be no pre-game handshake. He was very specific about that. And if he called for a team to contribute a new baseball, you couldn't throw the ball to him. He wouldn't catch it. Or even try. I suppose you could have rolled a ball to him. But, that seemed to defeat the purpose of sending him a pristine ball. Generally, we'd have one of the coaches (or players) just run a new baseball up to him and gentle and carefully hand it to him.

But, we were quick to remind everyone: whatever you do, don't touch him.

JG