Things like coaching boys. Watching your boys grow up. Friendships forged. Winning and losing. Competing. Sportsmanship. Dealing with personal loss and grief. Resiliency. Teaching.
And, yes, baseball.
I'm going to call it "The Last Days of the Dodgers."
This morning, the Dodgers played our last game of the truncated spring/summer season. It was nice to play the 8:30 a.m. game because it hadn't gotten hot yet. Actually, it was a beautiful morning.
We lost to the Ballers for the fourth time. 7-3. Previous losses were 5-2, 5-3, and 5-2. I'm not going to recap this morning's game because that's not what this post is about but, in reality, it should have been a 4-3 game. We had a couple of wild pitches that scored runs and a throw down to third that got away from Porter and allowed run to score. The Ballers are slightly better than us but only by a run or two. It's a good, competitive matchup for us.
It was our last game on the smaller fields (no. 3 and 4 at Warner Park). Field 3 today. Now, it's on to the prep field (no. 5). Regulation baseball. Bases 90' apart. Pitching from 60' 6". Just like in the big leagues.
It's a whole new ballgame.
All morning before the game and, really, during the game itself, I had one foot in the past and one foot in the present. As I restlessly walked around on our side of the field during the game - the first base side, as we were the visiting team - my my wandered.
So many Dodgers' baseball games with this group for the past seven years. Fall, spring, and summer. Hot summer afternoons and cool, sometime cold, fall nights under the lights at Warner Park.
From coach pitch at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ on fields 4 and 5, nestled amongst the trees on the back of the property to machine pitch on fields 1, 2, and 3 at Harpeth Hills and Warner Park on field 2, 3, and 4. From the first fall season of kid pitch on fields 3 and 4 at Warner Park, when the boys were eight and nine years old, struggling to learn how to steal bases, to today, watching our 12 year old boys play the game the right way. Holding runners on, taking secondary leads, stealing bases, seeing real curve balls.
I thought about all of those games. I saw ghosts on the baseball field. I saw Wes, Benton, J.P., Porter, J.K., Aidan, and Cooper, as five and six year olds, running around field 5 at Harpeth Hills after a Sunday practice, playing a game they called "diaper tag," as the parents watched, laughed, and talked amongst themselves, building the foundation of friendships that have flourished over the years.
In those days, I always marveled at the fact that the boys had as much, if not more, fun after practice than they had at practice. And you know what? That's the way it should have been. And that's the way it was.
I thought about the ones that got away.
Brennan and Davis, who moved away. I nicknamed Brennan's dad, Dan, "the Professor." He ran the pitching for me when the boys were 7 and 8. He was a master at making the micro-adjustments, in game, to the pitching machine that were necessary to give the boys good pitches to hit.
Ellis, from a single parent home, who more than anyone needed this team and the role modeling that all of us, as coaches, work hard to provide to the boys. His mom simply couldn't or wouldn't get him to games and practices consistently, even though my coached and I offered to help with transportation. She pulled him off the team mid-season, selfishly in my view. I always hated that for Ellis.
Asher, the quiet one who joined us late and played first base and outfield. He had talent. His dad, also very quiet, always came to games in a Cubs hat and sat behind the backstop, reading. I love to read, of course, but I cannot imagine reading at the ballpark while my son played baseball.
Asher drifted away from baseball which happens, of course. Boys find other sports or don't enjoy hitting off of live pitching. Or, sometimes, boys' parents don't enjoy baseball and the boys pick up on that. Braden drifted away, too, after a long run with the Dodgers.
Emerson, a girl, played with us one fall when the boys were 7 or 8. As I recall, she was out third best hitter, a year older than most of our boys. She played the game with such enthusiasm and joy. It lifted everyone on the team, including coaches. I always thought she had a crush on Wes that fall, although he was clueless.
I smiled to myself and thought about the first practice I ever lead, as head coach. It was at Sevier Park and my father-in-law, Jim White, helped me. We were the Red Sox that fall or spring. I forget which but it's the only time I've coached a team that wasn't the Dodgers or Junior Dodgers. I was nervous and, really, didn't know what the hell I was doing. Still, Jim and I made it through that practice, and I made it through that season, and the core group of the Dodgers was on that team. Crazy, when you think about it.
I thought about players, and families, whom we have picked up over the years. Boys like Elijah, Ethan, Turner, and Nico. I wish like hell they had been on the Dodgers from day 1 because they fit so well with the rest of our group. Still, I am so glad they ended up with us and that I got to coach them.
I thought - a lot - about the love and gratitude I feel for my assistant coaches. Chris Taylor, Tony Weeks, Randy Kleinstick, Will Wright, and Chad Poff.
The late night telephone conversations about lineups, which player is down and needs a little extra attention, scheduling, practice drills, and tournaments. The "coaches meetings" I used to call when we would meet, after bedtime for our boys, at Edley's for a beer or two and a lot of baseball talk.
These men are the Dodgers. They're role models for out boys, every one of them, and I love them for that.
I thought about how, when the boys were younger, after every game I would race with them out to right field to talk. Win or lose, they ran with me, tackled each other, slid onto the ground, and we shared a few minutes together after the game. Many times, half of them didn't know, or care, if we won or lost the game. Yesterday, I walked with them out to right field again, for old time's sake, and spoke to them.
I told them how much I loved them. I thanked them for this season and for giving me, and my coaches, a sense of purpose again, and providing a distraction from the stress of every day life. I told them I was proud of them. I told them how lucky they were to have such a great coaching staff.
So many games on so many fields for the Dodgers over the last seven years. I've loved every game, every inning, every pitch. Wins and losses. Individual triumphs and individual failures. Lessons learned, by the boys and, of course, by me.
I don't know what the future holds with middle school ball looming for several members of our baseball team, including J.P. I think, and hope, the Dodgers will play together in the fall on the big field at Warner Park. We'll lose a few players but all signs point toward having most of our core group. I hope that's the way it works out.
Either way, it's the last days of the Dodgers. Or close to it.
And it's been one helluva ride.
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