The Mighty Doodle Strikes Out

It was the last game of the season. The Cubs and Giants were running neck in neck for the 1976 Wills Park Little League Championship. It was a warm mid-autumn night and both teams had been matching run for run the entire game. Emotions were running high in the stands. Parents and friends were turning ugly under the stress. “Let’s play some ball… PEEE-PLL” one lady screamed through the chain link fence. The pace of the game was slow and labored. The bottom of the seventh inning came around at a snail’s pace. The score was 7-6 in the Giants favor. The Cubs had one more chance at bat and needed two runs to win. Like thunder “BOOM BOOM BOOM” the first three batters loaded the bases. All the team needed was two base hits and they could spend the rest of the night stuffing themselves with chilidogs and Mr. Misties at the Dairy Queen. Scott, the coach’s son was next to bat. His dad had been training him for this moment all his life. Walking to meet his destiny, he stepped up to the plate. The pitches came in straight and perfect and evenly paced. But the coach’s son struck out anyway. He returned to the dugout inconsolable, baseball cap pulled low to hide his tears. The Cubs now had one out on the board. Big Skipper, the catcher, grabbed his favorite blue aluminum bat like it was a sword and stepped up to the batting area. He tapped the home plate hard three times with ole blue, spat and cocked the bat over his shoulder. “Steee Rieeee Kah” the umpire yelled once and then two more times just to be funny. Skipper flung his batting helmet off and threw it at the chicken wire window of the dugout. His hair stuck out wet and wild. “Shit”, the big man croacked and screwed his face up in agony. Then the worst thing that could have possibly happened …happened. The coach called me to bat.

The whole team felt the impact of the coach’s decision and started to pre-morn the game. “It’s okay coach, I don’t have to bat…let Rodney or Brian or Shane or anybody take my place...I’ll just sit this one out” Coach Stovall looked at me with a calm, fatherly face and smiled. The chew in his mouth was exposed when he grinned and lay like fresh mown brown grass against his teeth. “It’s your turn Doodle-Bug, do the best you can do boy”.

Timidly I geared up and walked into the glare of the lights. I felt as if I was watching myself from a dream. “This is not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” I kept telling myself. The unmistakable sound of my mother’s voice wedged it’s way through the crowd. “Knock the hell out of it Doodle!” I took a deep breath and nodded at the pitcher. The first pitch was delivered in slow motion and I nailed it right on the sweet spot. The ball soared high and hard and crashed into the back fence. The crowd’s volume rose in a wave but was quickly snuffed out by the words “FOUL BALL”. I raised my bat again. Once again the pitcher tossed me a baby pitch and I did my best to knock the cover off it. “CRASH” the back fence went, “HOORAY” went the crowd and “FOUL BALL” went the umpire. Then a radical thought entered my brain, “I could win the game.” My body stiffened up and revoked access to my limbs. Two more pitches came in slow and perfect but I could not budge. The anticipation of the crowd was rising. “YOU CAN DO IT DOODLE!” A brief moment of courage surged through my body and my fear dropped like panties on prom night. The next pitch was tossed and I laid into it. “Another fucking foul ball” I was really in a pickle now. One more foul or one more strike and I was out. No prize for Doodle. The pitcher released the ball and as it was travelling on it’s way across the strike zone an angle came down from heaven and whispered in my ear. “It’s your game Doodle all you have to do is swing”. “STEEE RIIIII KAH!” I let my grand slam homerun pass unchecked over the plate.

I have often wondered if my life would have been different if I had swung at that ball. I did not know it at the time, but that weird night back in 1976 I was standing on a pivot point in my life. Maybe I would have entered high school more confident and then carried that feeling into the rest of my life. Maybe I would have become just another sports asshole in a town full of them. One thing is for sure; the angels were rooting for me that night.