Final tally for the 2016 spring season? 13-4-1. Not too shabby for the boys. Sadly, Davis Joyner and Brennan Ayres and their families are moving, so I won't have them back on the team in the future. It's tough for me because I've coached almost all of these boys since they were 4 or 5 years old, in fall and spring, and I love them.
Although I was on the fence initially, I decided to reach out to my assistant coaches and, later, the other parents, to see if they were interested in having their sons play "All-Star" baseball. My thought - and what we ultimately agreed to do - was for us to take our team, the Dodgers, and play in 3 tournaments in June. Like so many things, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Whether it ended up being a good idea, well, that's probably up for debate.
First off, it was a bit of a challenge to field a roster for the first All-Star tournament, hosted by GAC (Grassland). Davis already had moved, a few of my players were on vacation and a couple didn't want to commit to playing in all 3 tournaments. I ended up adding 3 or 4 extra players and had a total of 15 players on the Dodgers' All-Star roster. And, really, it was a scramble the entire time to come up with enough players for each game. In some ways, that in and of itself tells me something about whether playing All-Star baseball was a good idea.
In the Grassland tournament, we got gonged by Bellevue, lost to Grassland (6-2) and lost to Hendersonville (9-4). Not too bad, really, except that that might have been the high point of our postseason play. The highlight of the Grassland tournament was when Cooper, playing right field, caught a fly ball to end the inning. Big, big moment, particularly since a few moments earlier he was crying after missing a ball that he really had no chance to catch.
Next up, the second weekend of June - the WNSL tournament (at Bellevue, no less) and Bonnaroo. For the life of me, I cannot recall playing Thursday night, although I skipped Bonnaroo that day to coach in the game. Friday, I went to Bonnaroo and skipped the Dodgers' game. The boys got gonged, although forget by whom. Saturday, I decided (after much internal debate) to go to Bonnaroo late, after the game.
The Dodgers played SW Nashville (Spring Hill) and were leading 6-5 going into the top of the 6th inning. The umpire blew a call when Aidan properly froze the runner at third base, the runner at first base took off and all hell broke loose. The boys fell apart and gave up 6-7 runs. In the bottom of the 7th inning, our first two batters struck, then Henry got a base hit and JP absolutely crushed a ball, sending it up the middle and to the fence. Henry was on second base and JP on first base when Benton hit ball up the middle, as well. Henry scored, but JP took too big of a turn at second base. The outfielder threw behind JP and the second baseman tagged him out as he dove back into the bag.
JP was devastated, to say the least, because he felt like he had let the team down. He tried to say that "Coach Chris" (coaching third base) had "sent him," which wasn't true. He and I tried to work through it in the dugout, but he was too upset to be reasoned with. I decided not to go to Bonnaroo, but Jude convinced me when I got home that I should go. So I did.
Last weekend, our final tournament, the District tournament was held at the WNSL fields at Edwin Warner Parks. On Thursday night, the Dodgers played the Franklin Generals and got gonged 16-1 when Franklin scored 12 runs in bottom of the 3rd inning. It was a helpless feeling to watch the boys fall apart, hit after hit, as Franklin's players rounded the bases. JP kicked a ball at second base that allowed the 16th run to score, which ended the game. When I met with the boys in right field after the game, I told them to forget about it. They were down, though, and seemed to be shell shocked as I talked to them.
Friday was a tough day for me, as I struggled with the idea that maybe I had gotten the boys in over their heads given that most of the teams they were facing were true All-Star teams - the best players from all of the teams in a particular league (Hendersonville, Grassland, etc.) - while our team was simply our regular season team with a couple additional players (not an All-Star team). I had a hard time getting out of my mind the long faces that had stared back at me the night before when I talked to the boys after the game.
Saturday morning, the boys player better against a good Hendersonville team and lost 9-2. That afternoon, disaster struck, though, as Crieve Hall gonged the Dodgers, 30-3. Without question, that was the low point for me. After the game, one of my assistant coaches and close friends made a passive-egressive comments after the game about where his son was batting in the batting order and I almost lost it. I pulled him aside, pulled no punches in telling him what I thought about the time and nature of his comments, then headed home.
That left one game to be played - Sunday - in the consolation bracket against our league rival, the Braves. I briefly thought about forfeiting the game, mostly because I thought it might literally break them if they lost big, and because I knew we would only have 9 players. Chad, one of my assistant coaches, suggested it would be worse for the boys to end the season on such a sour note, after a 30-3 loss, and he was right. So, it was on to Sunday for the season finale.
Surprisingly - or maybe not surprisingly, I don't know - the Dodgers jumped out to an early lead, 4-1, then 6-1. For the first time since the end of the regular season, the boys hit the baseball. Slowly, though, the Braves chipped away at the lead, and after we batted in the top of the 6th inning, the Dodgers led 11-10. A lot of these games turn on where in the lineup a team is toward the end of the game and I knew we were in trouble, because the Braves had their 2-3-4 hitters coming up. Sure enough, they got a couple of hits, had runners on second and third base, then their cleanup hitter knocked them both in with a single.
Just like that, the Dodgers season was over.
My voice caught and I had tears in my eyes as I knelt down a final time in left field and addressed my boys. I told them I was more proud of them, that day, than of any team I had ever coached before. And I was. The 9 boys that I had that day - Father's Day - Porter, Brandon, Brennan, Benton, J.P., Aidan, Cyrus, Jonathan and Ellis gave me everything they had and then some. I could not have gotten a greater Father's Day gift then the effort they game me in trying to beat their rivals. Although they lost 12-11, they won in life that afternoon on a baseball field at Edwin Warner Park.
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Should the Dodgers have played tournament baseball this year? Should we have had an All-Star team?
I don't know. I'm still a little torn about that. The easy answer, I think, is no. We could have taken a few weeks off and basked in the glory of a successful regular season where the boys weren't challenged in several games. The boys could have taken some time off before summer basketball.
The easy road is not always the best road to take, though. In fact, the challenging road, I think, is more rewarding and memorable in the long run. Certainly, the boys were challenged. They didn't win a game in three tournaments, but they practiced a lot and played against high caliber competition. And I saw improvement, across the board, from each and every one of them.
In the end, I realized that maybe it's not that complicated.
The day after the last game, I asked J.P. if he was glad the Dodgers played in "All-Stars?"
"Sure, dad. I'm glad we played," he replied.
"Why?" I asked.
He looked at my quizzically, like the answer was obvious.
"Because it was more baseball," J.P. said.
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