Nationals

                                       

            This is the weekend we’d set off for nationals.  I have no idea why it was called that or what the rationale was to it other than having a bunch of travel teams from different states face off against one another.  Even more confusing, the winning teams didn’t go on to play other national winners.  You just got to say, “We won at Lee’s Summit” or some other place.

            The first two times we went were kind of exciting, starting with Kansas City.  Who knew?  I mean, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and Country Club Plaza are great tourist destinations.  The museum was instructive (if not much on women), and CCP is a 1920s’, Spanish-influenced shopping district; we didn’t eat George Brett’s restaurant, but we did peek in.   (KC ribs?  Yes.)  As for the softball part, it was always fun to play a team like the Legion of Doom-ski.  I also appreciated the work of our coaches, Mike Schwab and Harry Johnson, the calm and the excitable (though never mean).

From what I could see, Schwab handled lineups and the rotation while Johnson focused on motivation and positioning players.  “You’re creeping, Clare,” was how Harry wanted Clare to play second base.  “That will not drop!” was how he wanted everyone in the outfield to go after balls.  Unfortunately, Schwab and Johnson retired after that second year in KC.

They were replaced by the second coming of Abbott and Costello.  Clare hit .425 as a junior that spring, not that they cared.  It was up in the order, down in the order, play second base, or dh.  At one tournament, Clare hit five home runs in two days.  We took home the first-place trophy, but somebody else was named MVP.  That hurt.  So did the absence of any Division I coaches, two of whom we thought might be interested.  If no one’s there to hear the tree fall in the forest, does it make a sound?  If no one’s there to see the home runs fly, do they matter?

Our dynamic duo wanted to go to nationals somewhere in Kansas famous for its salt mines.  (I’m serious).  The team rebelled, and the coaches relented.  We went to Salisbury, Maryland, instead.  Talk about a nightmare.  Clare was hit by a pitch in her first at-bat, and then given the steal sign; the infielder slapped the tag on her head so hard Clare passed out.  Coach Abbott felt the need to tell Clare how she could have stolen the base without losing consciousness.  He also addressed the slump she was going through by saying that travel pitching is harder than varsity, even though two of our pitchers didn’t pitch on varsity that spring.  At some point in the summer Coach also told Clare he doubted she could play in college.

The only thing Coach didn’t do was show much concern for Clare when she did a full 360 in the air after a collision at first base.  He said more to my wife in telling her to get off the field; for Clare it was, at most, “Are you ok?”  When the tournament finished, my daughter informed me she would play her senior year, and that would be it for softball.  She’d had enough of coaches and heartbreak, or so she thought.        

       Those are some of the things I recall on a weekend like this as the soon-to-be-college senior and team co-captain goes off to work as an intern for the Chicago Bandits professional softball team.  To remember also invites the question: What happens when softball comes to its likely end next spring, to father and player alike?  I guess we’ll find out.