I love fall baseball. In many ways, it feels like an extension of spring baseball, which ends in June. No baseball in July, then back after it in August. Fall baseball, really, is late summer baseball, I guess, at least according to the West Nashville Sports League calendar.
So much of my baseball life with the Diamondbacks' family is almost identical to my baseball life, years ago, with our Dodgers' family. It's strange, surreal even, but patterns repeat. A Diamondbacks' player reminds me so much of one of my Dodgers' players. A Diamondbacks' coach reminds me of one of my Dodgers' coaches.
It's all a circle, really, for me. A circle of love, of baseball, of boys, and of families. The practices and the games run together over time. It's hard to see where it starts and where it ends, in some ways. I love all of it so much to the very core of my being. I don't want it to end, although I know it will, someday, in the not too distant future. I want to coach my sons playing youth baseball forever. I want to coach youth baseball for all of eternity.
Late this afternoon and tonight, the the curtain closed on Diamondbacks' fall baseball season. It's been a challenging but rewarding season. We made a deliberate decision to move the boys up, early, to the 11 - 12 year old division, from minors to majors. My fingerprints are all over that decision. I knew the boys would struggle at times, individually and as a group, because I moved my Dodgers up early, too. In other words, I've seen that movie and I know that it ends on a high note.
In my view, it's better for the boys to struggle in fall baseball, playing against older players and learning the rules of real baseball, as opposed to drilling 9 - 10 year olds week in and week out. The boys get batter by playing older and better players. It's just that simple. I lived it with my Dodgers, most of whom are playing middle school and high school baseball, and this fall, I lived it again with the Diamondbacks.
The first game was tough, as Diamondbacks I got pasted by the Nationals.
The second game - the one that Joe played in with Diamondback II - was much better, as it ended in an 8 - 8 tie and a lot of drama. Preston - Coach O's son - struck out the last batter on a 3 - 2 count with the bases loaded to end the game. So much pressure not to walk the final batter and Preston came through in the clutch. Simply amazing. A snapshot moment, to be sure.
As Preston walked off the field, I hugged him. He looked up at me, sighed, and said, "Coach Phil, that was almost my worst nightmare."
Mine, too, I thought. I didn't want Preston to wear a loss like that in the last game of the fall season. That would have been a tough one, to be sure.
I'm going to miss these boys, particularly the ones I coached for the first time. Leo, Parkes, Henry S., Mikey, John, and Griffin ("the Captain").
After the end of the second game, we went to Pizza Perfect in Bellevue. I think every boys came to the end of season party save one, which is pretty incredible. The boys sat together, in a room in the back, while the parents clustered together at tables nearby.
Oliver said a few nice words about the parents, the assistant coaches, and the boys. Before the boys broke it down with a D-backs chant a final time, I stepped up and addressed the group for a minute or two, to who my appreciate for Oliver.
It was a fitting ending to a great fall of baseball that went by far too quickly, and ended on a brisk fall night, with our game, an 8 - 8 tie, the last game of the night, and of the fall.
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