The Stork Stops Here: The Last Days of the Dodgers

The Dodgers - my Dodgers - played their last games of the fall season on a glorious fall morning at Warner Park while I sat in a classroom, downtown, in the third day of six days of mediation training.

There I was, stuck, getting text messages from my players' dads in a futile effort to keep up with how my guys were playing, and how J.P. was playing. Missing the last two games of the fall season - maybe the last two games I would have coached some of these players - absolutely crushed me. I love these boys so much. As I've said many, many times, I love them like they're mine. Every damn one of them.

I like to think I am man of many words. Too many, sometimes. Still, I find myself without words sufficient to describe how much these boys - these Dodgers - mean to me and how much I treasure all of the time we spent together on baseball fields across middle Tennessee the past nine years. The memories I have of our time spent together will endure for the length of may life and sustain me, I hope, on my inexorable journey into old age.

I remember my very first practice as a head coach. The makeshift, all grass, non-baseball field at Sevier Park. Nothing but tall grass and a rusted, dirty backstop. No infield. No bases. My father-in-law, Jim White, was there with me. I was nervous and, quite literally, had no idea what in the hell I was doing. We probably practiced running to first and, maybe, played catch, although I have no memory of the practice itself. I got through it and away we went.

I remember the ones that got away from the earliest days of coach pitch and machine pitch baseball. Brennan Ayers and Davis Joyner, both of whom moved to Florida with their families. Later, I lost Braden Sweeney, Aidan Poff, and Porter Weeks.

Coach pitch baseball was so much fun. Me, sitting on the empty, upside down bucket I carried the baseballs in, while pitching underhanded to my players from five or ten feet away. Encouraging the boys to knock me off the bucket by driving a ball back up the middle and making a big show of falling off the bucket when they did to gales of laughter.

I remember Benton Wright - one of the "Core Four" that played with me all the way through - as my most serious five year old, carefully placing his glove and hat on the bench, then grabbing his batting helmet and bat when it was time to hit. Now Benton is my tallest kid, by far, best hitter, and hardest thrower. I've seen him, literally, hit three batters in a row in the back, then strike out the side. My guy 'til the end.

Benton's dad, Will, always present, graciously and selflessly running the dugout game after game. In those days, I believe, Will sat the boys in order by their uniform number and we batted them 1 - 12 or 12 - 1, alternating from game to game. Later, Will kept the lineup and the scorebook for me, then used the Gamechanger App the past few years. Will always kept order in the dugout, which is not an easy task. So many dugout conversations with Will over the years, telephone calls, e-mails, and texts, all about the Dodgers.

I remember an end of season league tournament game - machine pitch - on field #4 at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ, when J.P. just missed making a tough play at second base. With the tying run on third base and the winning run on second base, though, he fielded the next ball hit, a hot shot again to second base, and threw the batter out at first base. J.P.'s teammates mobbed him as I watched from the first baseline, so proud.

So many losses to our rivals, the Dirtbags, in the early years. We just couldn't get over the hump against them. I remember the end of season tournament final, also machine pitch, on field 2 at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ, when Benton threw a boy out at first to end the game and secure our first win over the Dirtbags, only to have the umpire - a 17 or 18 year old boy - panic and miss the call as Pat Lawson yelled "safe" from the third baseline. We tied that game. I was devastated because I wanted my boys to get a win over the Dirtbags.

Later, at Warner Park, I remember coaching Joe's Junior Dodgers on field 2, when several of the Dodgers came running over from field 3 after beating the Dirtbags for the first time. They were walking on air, so excited, and I was damn proud of them. I think our boys were 10 or 11 then and, after that, the tables turned and we rarely, if ever, lost to the Dirtbags again. Persistence paid off, as it usually does.

All the time spent on the baseball field, at practices and games, with Chris Taylor, Randy Kleinstick, Will Wright and, before he and his son, Porter, left for greener pastures, Tony Weeks. My good and, hopefully, lifelong friends, all of these men. Role models to our boys.

So many memories.

The first home runs hit by Wes Taylor, Elijah Luc, and Benton Wright. Wes throwing a knuckleball in a game for the first time. Ethan Deerkoski's first curve ball in a game, baffling to the boys trying to hit it.

A run to the state championship, in Lawrenceburg, when the boys were 11 years old. That baseball season is a chapter in a book unto itself, for sure. So much going on behind the scenes, trying to blend our team with the boys we added from Bellevue and, that season, running two 11/12 year old teams with 18 or 19 players on our roster.

As I stood at the church at visitation for my mom, my heart breaking, I looked up and saw my entire Dodgers team walking toward me. For the length of what I hope will be a long life for me, I never will forget the sight of those boys, my Dodgers, walking toward me, hugging me, supporting me in my darkest hour.

So many times over the past decade, the baseball field was an oasis for me. A place where I could forget my mom's declining health, as I helplessly watched Alzheimer's disease steal away with her mind and memories, day by day. A place where I could forget about the stresses of a thriving family law practice and my client's pressing and important problems. A place where - for an hour or two - I was "Coach Phil" to a bunch of boys playing baseball, many of whom I'd known since they were four or five.

I've always said it - and it's true - the boys who played baseball for me taught me a lot more than I taught them.

I could tell stories, and recount memories - snapshots in time - of every boy who has played for me. And, maybe, one day I will. But not here in this space, at least not today.

I've had a feeling for a while now that our run - the Dodgers' run - was nearing the end. Actually, I thought that might be the case last fall, then again last spring. Still, we stayed together as a group, a team, and played together again this fall, in an abbreviated season marked by an unusually high number of rainouts and a burgeoning controversy involving the efforts of the Wicked Witch of West Nashville - Jenny Hannon - to dismantle the Heriges Field at Warner Park and for Friends of Warner Park to eliminate baseball an flag football at Edwin Warner Park. But, that's another story.

I don't know what the future holds for the Dodgers but I suspect our group will look different in the spring if we play together again. Part of me - a big part of me - would like to form a tournament baseball team with the boys who are committed to baseball as their main thing, their priority. We have a nucleus of boys who could do that, I think, especially if I hired hitting and pitching coaches. The boys would be competitive with a couple of additions to our roster. I'm sure of that.

But, for now, it's the offseason. J.P. made the basketball team at Montgomery Bell Academy and Joe is playing on two basketball teams. Grayson Murphy is embarking on his final season at Belmont U., and I want to take my boys to as many of his games as I can. Baseball can wait.

What I really, really want to do is plan a party for all of the boys (and families) who have ever played for me. I want to collect everyone's photos in a shared Google album. I also want to take my coaches out to dinner over the holidays. I want all of those things, badly.

And I want to take a few more quiet moments, sipping a cup of coffee, or my favorite bourbon, and reflect on this group of boys - the Dodgers - and magical, memorable ride we've taken together for almost 10 years.