By Mark David Blum, Esq.

Eleven years.

It has been eleven years since my daughter first decided she wanted to play softball.

Workouts

Practices

Games

Eleven seasons

In New York and in Beverly Hills

Every year, a champ.

Together, we went through pee wee league, little league, and modified play at the middle school level. Two days ago, for the first time ever, my precious child did not make the FM team. It tore her heart out and mine even moreso to be helpless to ease pain. Her ‘career’ in softball, such as it was, is now officially over.

(Of course I am not so paranoid to think that coaches at the High School would cut a kid from a team because of her father’s outspokenness on a recent athletic proposal.

For me too, it is a sudden halt to being a sports parent. If there was anything that bonded my daughter and I, it was her game. Sure, we do lotsa fun stuff and have a great relationship. Softball, however, was special.

Her mother did not understand it. Her friends did not play. It was a joint exercise in maturation, team work, true applications of honor and integrity, and learning that no matter how bad things get, no matter how much it hurts, you get back up on your feet and try again. Together, this was our game. I self taught her to pitch and worked on her dynamics. In my heart, I always knew that her temper tantrums, crying, bickering, arguing, and snits were all but gentle expressions of how much she loved me and how much she appreciated the work I did.

Work. Yessirree, I did work. She never threw a pitch in practice that I was not there to catch. When I think of all the miles I walked to pick up her passed balls and wild pitches, I would now be in on a beach in SouthEast Asia. In the heat and in the cold, in the dead of winter and on the hottest of summer days, my daughter and I worked together.

My baseball mitt; mine since I was her age, is still in my possession. In a melancholy moment, I glanced at it and noticed how every one of the finger laces had been restrung because of the wear and tear of catching for my kid. It has become painfully obvious of late that somewhere along the way this season, she surpassed me in playing skills. To her, I throw “like a girl”. I am nowhere near as accurate as is she. I don’t have the arm or the arm strength. Where I used to tease her when she would drop balls, now it is her making fun of me.

These past few days, I have been hovering between downright sadness and bursting with pride. Eleven seasons she played. Eleven seasons I fought with her coaches. Eleven seasons … and no more.

Last night, I sneaked into her room as she lay asleep and stood there admiring her bookcase. Eleven years, 14 trophies, one game ball, two bats, two helmets, four mitts, and more than 75 practice balls … more than I ever had.

When I was 14 years old, I had a bowling trophy for Most Improved Average. (Probably went from 26 to 53). In high school, I did well in swimming and water polo for the year and a half that I was there. But nothing like her. When I look at the trophies, I see cheap plastic. But in my daughter’s eyes, I know that she sees achievement and recognition; as she should.

No doubt she has learned so many valuable lessons from all of this. Her coaches have been phenomenal and they did so much for her self confidence and growth. Though each may hate my guts, I count them as being among those people to whom I shall be eternally grateful for all they did for my daughter.

Whatever the future brings, these experiences are now a part of my daughter’s history and future. All that she will become, how she will behave, how she will responds and handle problems, whether she has courage to fight adversity will in no small way, be because of these people and these experiences.

Thanks to them, I sleep well at night.

Of course I could not let this discussion go without sharing my favorite softball story. All the action that took place did NOT take place on the field. As usual, I was in the middle of it. It was my daughter’s last game ever in little league; it was the championship and she was too old to continue the following years.

The same years she played Little League and in the Majors, I had been the announcer, scoreboard operator, and “MixMaster Mark”, the “Macho Man of Music” up in the booth and kept the music up and hard for the audience between games and on occasion, between innings. Making up nicknames on the fly for batters coming to the plate and mocking the umpires were just a few of the signature moves I would make at any given game. My last year, one of the coaches bought a monster speaker system and I could really crank up the Macarena.

As always, an hour before game time, I opened the booth and threw in a tape or CD of some jock rock. Fifteen minutes before game time, I play a collection of four baseball songs I have. At the end of the game, I play Queen’s, We Are the Champions.

An hour before game time and the place is rocking. Our team has a rule that they came upon on their own. NO DANCING UNTIL AFTER THE GAME. They considered it to be bad luck and would sneer at other teams whose players would start beebopping in the field. NOT dancing to some of these tunes was a real task and I was impressed at their self control. Me, I was under no such obligation, and would bebop, hop, and flop about at will.

An hour before that last game time, our team is in the field, and the coach from the other team arrives on the scene. Whether he had a bad day at work or was just totally stressed from playing in the championship game, he was not in the mood for music. He marched right upstairs and demanded I turn down the music.

Being the humble and nice kind person I am, I complied. As he turned to leave, I was already slowly inching the volume back up to its’ normal setting of MAXIMUM. By the time he walked allllllllllllll the way back down and around to the field, he was annoyed again by the volume … and he stormed right back up. Since I could see him coming, I had it down by the time he got inside and listened to him tell me to “turn it the fuck down.”

When Donkeys Fly.

Then I pulled rank. I reminded him that I am just a parent volunteering my time and have been doing it for a couple years now and have always had the music on full blast at the request of the coaches and that if he wanted me to turn it down, he should go resolve the matter with the other coach down on the field. I took myself out of the calculus.

His anger now grew concentrated as this coach stormed back down again onto the field and right behind second base, started calling out the other coach at full volume. A nice long shouting match went on between the two coaches to the enjoyment and delight of those of us lucky enough to witness and hear it. But the band played on.

My daughter’s team had been practicing the whole time this was going on. The other team was just standing around watching their coach make a colossal asshole out of himself. Finding no solace from the coach on the field, the ‘other’ coach was now making cellfone calls, having a couple of his kid’s parents get on the fone with what I can only assume was with the league or Board. Two parents came upstairs and made sure I knew how fucked up it was that I would not turn the music down. I just shrugged and gave them the “its not my job” line. Rest assured that had any of them reached for the volume, they would have died.

Eventually, the other coach got himself together and his warm ups were going on. His players were all bouncing and dancing to the music. At one point, he decided to take batting practice such that the balls would be threatening our team. In response, our coach gave our best hitter batting practice and she shelled them in response. And the band played on.

At a point, our team came to the infield to drill. Of course, I turned down the volume a little so the coach could be heard by his players. (An act that did not go unnoticed by the other coach out in the outfield). At about thirty minutes before game time, the other coach came up with his entire team and asked our coach when they could have the field. (Note: there were only three plays were left on the drill our team was running before the team was going to go rest).

Our coach: “When would you like the field? You can have it whenever you are ready. Just tell me when you want it.”

Their coach: “OK, then we would like it now”

Our coach: “We are not done with it. You can have it when we are done.”

Stunned parent watching from above: “LMFAO”

In a total huff, the other coach walked off taking his entire team out of the field completely and onto an adjoining lawn area for practice.

Two minutes later, our team was done and they left the field.

I turned off the music.

The field sat empty, quiet, and everybody was looking for the missing team.

Eventually they came back took to the infield. I was kind and left the music off until they were done; not hesitating to crank it back up when they were done.

When the other team was done practicing, a gaggle of players from the other team meandered out to the pitcher’s mound and started dancing together to the music. Their message was that “we own the mound”.

In the game that followed, our pitchers never went below 60%. Their batters got one hit in 5 ½ innings. Final score? 2-1.

In all my years of Little League Girls Fast Pitch, I have never seen a 2-1 game. Most times scores are more like 15-9. Games normally would take 2 – 2½ hrs. Balls and walks rain down until you are ready to shoot yourself from boredom.

Not this time. One hour and fifteen minutes later, after our girls kicked the crap out of them (some lucky glove work on their part kept the score from being 20-1), we were the champs.

But after eleven years, I have just one nagging question …

What am I supposed to do with myself now?