This is not why I love baseball. But, I suppose it doesn’t hurt my affection for the game.
What is pictured above is my 1979 Brownstown Little League Champs trophy. While my “stuff” is getting less and less important to me with every passing year, I still smile when I look at this trophy.
I was eleven years old. I know I mentioned some of the logistics of this baseball season in a previous post. I was playing for the Royals. While we were playing a little league season, I was in the midst of moving from Brownstown to Harrison County. The last few games of the season, I actually traveled over 50 miles to get to the baseball diamond to help my team win it all. Win it all is exactly what we did. We did not lose a single game. The 1979 Brownstown Little League Royals were the 1972 Miami Dolphins. We did not lose a game.
I played first base. Blessed with a good glove, I could catch anything heading my direction. Throw it as hard as you want. I could care less. I could scoop it and dig it too…those pesky throws coming from deep in the infield that did not have enough steam on them were not a problem.
Foot speed? There are sun dials that I could not keep up with. Oh…I wasn’t woefully slow. I can tell you foot speed is the thing I had the least of…with the exception of courage when it was my time at bat.
I was a chicken at the plate. Put a glove on me and I am Superman in the infield. Take my cape…uh, my glove away, and I was a grade “A” weenie. Put a stick of wood in my hands and I was doomed. Oh, I got my share of hits. I don’t think I did better than a double that year. I just closed my eyes, tried to make contact, and ran at the first hint that contact had been made. It wasn’t always like that. If the pitcher was younger than I was and I thought I could stare at him and intimidate him a bit, I would stand there like I was Babe Ruth and dare him to put on over the plate. The difference was Babe hit a great many home runs. I hit singles and the occasion double. I was a head case at bat. I said it. I know it. Heck, I knew it then.
That doesn’t change the fact that I was on a baseball team that didn’t lose a game in 1979.
This picture appeared in The Brownstown Banner.
I’m the one in the back row folding his arms with my peach basket of a glove under my right arm. Most of us played in our jeans back then. We had no official uniforms other than a T-shirt with a generic looking name on the front. It was perfect. That team was perfect. One thing I have come to realize is not many folks can say they were on a team that did not lose a game. I was there. I was also there on some crappy teams too…don’t get me wrong. I suppose that is why this old simple trophy means so much to me. When I l look at the trophy we EARNED (this was before every kid got a trophy on the team just for showing up and for the hopes of raising some parent’s self-esteem), I hear a ball hitting my glove as Johnny Johnson throws a rope to me from third base. We get the runner by two steps. Johnny was a great baseball player. I was not.
The Major League Baseball season is young in 2015. I have watched the Cincinnati Reds play on television. I have actually watched them more than I expected to. I have yet to watch a full game. I usually tune in about the fourth or fifth inning and keep watching if I like what I see.
Hopefully my dear wife, Carrie, and I will make it to a minor league park or two this season. We enjoy watching the guys in the minors play their hearts out. Our two favorite teams are in North Carolina. The Asheville Tourists play in legendary McCormick Stadium. There is no place I would rather watch a game. We saw a no-hitter there. We have also been fortunate enough to witness a few games at DBAP…Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
Speaking the balls and strikes rights.
Danny Johnson