Director's Notes – Episode 84

(NOTE: As always, Director's Notes contain spoilers)

I played one season of little league in Garland, TX. We were the outlaws. I played catcher. My batting average that season was .000. (If you don't follow baseball, then good, because I don't need you knowing just how terrible a batter I was.)

One thing I was pretty good at doing was catching the ball and throwing the ball. I was bad at doing either of those things while moving, so catcher seemed to be the one thing that fit my (lack of) talents. You just squat, and when a little league pitcher throws the ball, you mostly just have to catch it and throw it back. 

Sometimes kids made contact with the ball and ran to a base, which was pretty great because it meant I didn't have to catch a ball and throw it back.

Growing up in North Texas, we went to watch the Texas Rangers from time to time and even an Oklahoma City 89ers* game or two, but it was never my sport. The game seemed dull, and I thought the sound and fury of canned music, the Wave, and interstitial fan contests was silly and not worth the time I could have spent playing Atari. 

But a girl I liked in high school loved baseball, so I started going to games with her. For a short time, she got me really into baseball. I even started going regularly to batting cages and eventually signed up to try out for my high school baseball team. (I said "signed up to try out" not "tried out.")

After graduation, we drifted apart, and I lost interest in baseball again until 2003, when I moved to Northampton, Massachusetts. In a divy corner bar, I witnessed Red Sox fans transcend existence with the success of their team, only for them to spiritually implode during Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the hated Yankees. The Boston blew a late lead, and in the bottom of the 11th the game-winning homer was hit by the Yankees thirdbaseman, a man known in New England as Aaron Fucking Boone. 

I've been a Red Sox fan ever since. 

This episode isn't about baseball, but it is about the little league coach I wish I had had growing up. Maybe Lusia could have refined my undeveloped skills and my interest in America's pasttime. Maybe I could have been on that 2003 Red Sox team, and I could have told Aaron, in person, where he could shove that homerun.

- Jeffrey Cranor
March 15, 2016

*The Oklahoma City 89ers (presently named the Oklahoma City Dodgers) are a Triple-A minor league team which is, according to Wikipedia, inexplicably in the "Pacific Coast" League.