Tinkers to Evers to Chance

It doesn't get much better, as a father, than to coach your 7 year old son and watch him make a play at second base in the bottom of last inning to win the game.

Today, my boys, the Dodgers, played the Giants in our 7-8 year old WNSL machine pitch baseball league.  To say I love coaching baseball is an understatement.  What I love most of all, though, is coaching the boys on my team, most of whom have played together since they were 4  years old.  To watch J.P. interact with his teammates, especially after games, and to forge the kind of friendships born of competing together on the baseball field or basketball court is so rewarding.

Our game today was nip and tuck, close all of the way to the end.  We were visitors and took an 8-6 lead in to the bottom of the last inning.  I put our best defense in the infield, Jaxyn at 3rd base, Benton at shortstop, J.P. at second base, Winn at first base and Wes at pitcher.  The Giant has their 8, 9 and 10 batters coming up, so I thought we were in pretty good shape.

The #8 batter hit a high hopper to the right side of the infield, right at J.P.  It was a tough play, but J.P. timed it perfectly, fielded it cleanly and threw to Winn at first base for the first out of the inning.  "That's it, I thought.  The #9 and #10 hitters are going to strike out and we'll win by two runs."

The #9 hitter swung and missed at the first two pitches, then somehow managed to punch the third pitch slowly up the middle.  Wes stepped up to make the play and was getting in position to field the ball, when it hit the pitching machine.  By rule, that's a dead ball and the runner was awarded first base.  "Trouble," I thought.  "They're going to get back to the top of the lineup."

Sure enough, the #10 batter struck out, bringing to the plate the leadoff hitter.  He promptly singled, which put runner on first and second base, with the Giants' best hitter, a lefty named Maston, strode to the plate.

Maston is the Giants' best hitter by far and one of my all-time favorite kids.  I coached him in the fall and he blossomed into a first rate baseball player.  Anyway, he's a dead pull hitter and he already had two hits in our game.  I moved Winn close to the bag at first base to guard the line and shifted J.P way over toward first base.  Then, I shifted Benton to his left from shortstop, almost all the way to second base.  It was a modified version of the "David Ortiz shift," employed by most of the Red Sox opponents.

Sure enough, Maston hit a ball right at J.P.  It was hit hard, but J.P. missed it and it rolled into the outfield, between our right and right-center fielders.  One run scored, a runner advance from first to third base, and Maston ended up on second base.  That left us with two outs, runners on second and third base and a one run lead, with the #3 hitter coming up.  The last time up, he hit a ball to the fence in left field for a triple.  "It's over," I thought.

On the first or second pitch, the #3 hitter hit a hard ground ball right at J.P.  He fielded in cleanly, turned a fired the ball to Winn, who caught it for the third out.  Game over.

As our players ran in toward the dugout, cheering, I ran onto the field, picked J.P. up and lifted him over my head.  "You did it!" I shouted as he smiled and laughed.  His teammates were excited to have won such a close game.  We lined up behind Brennan, shook the hands of the Giants and ran to right filed for our post-game meeting.  I told the boys how proud I was of them as they sat looking up at me, grinning and talking.  We stacked it up, yelled "2-0!" (our record for the weekend) and left the field together.

I've coached a lot of J.P.'s games over the last 3-4 years.  Soccer games, basketball games and many, many baseball games.  Today's game, though, was my favorite.  To watch J.P. miss a ball he maybe should have caught, keep his chin up, then make a tough play at second base to win the game - well, it really doesn't get any better than that.