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Mark Kolier returns today with another of his interesting personal reflections on the game we all love. This gives us the opportunity to take “time out” from our normal Baseball History Comes Alive fare and enjoy some fun, light reading. It’s a welcome diversion from the heavy, stats-laden writing we normally put out around here!

Mark writes about the greatest game he was ever a part of…and it’s not what you’d think! As he does so well, Mark — perhaps unknowingly — captures the unique father-son/daughter bonding experience that baseball affords its fans, the very essence of the game’s appeal. It’s an appeal that has transcended generations as no other game has.

Don’t worry…we’ll soon return to our normal baseball history “fare,” but for today, those of us who have ever coached our sons’/daughters’ teams or played catch with them in the backyard will enjoy what Mark has to offer us. -GL

Mark Kolier Recalls

“The Greatest Baseball Game I Was Ever a Part Of”

Attending a memorable major league baseball game is something that stays with you for the rest of your life. In a post I wrote recently for BHCA, I wrote that I am a very lucky person and have had multiple occasions to attend some of the most famous games in major league history. But if I were asked what was the greatest baseball game I’ve ever been a part of, it would be a mid-June Little League title game more than 20 years ago between 10 and 11-year-old boys.

 

I realize as I write this there are innumerable instances in which amazing and memorable things happened off the big-league diamond.  College baseball (and softball) are played at very high levels and have produced some epic stories including the NCAA game pitched between Ron Darling of Yale and Frank Viola of St. Johns in 1981. An account from the NY Post:

“Darling didn’t allow a hit over the first 11 innings and finished with 16 strikeouts, a performance he called his finest at any level. Viola tossed 11 shutout innings. The game wasn’t decided until the 12th, when St. John’s second baseman Steve Scafa blooped in the game’s only hit and stole home for the afternoon’s lone run.”

That’s a memorable baseball game!

How can I possibly compare the exploits of accomplished and talented baseball players to a bunch of pre-teen boys none of whom played baseball beyond college at most? And if there were more than two boys that played baseball beyond high school, I can’t remember it.  The two I can remember were D3 players. I can compare it because the tension of playing for a championship —  a ‘big game’ versus a big-shot rival —  made the stakes seem even higher. It’s important to note that this championship was not even at the highest level of our local Little League.  Yet on that day nothing mattered other than the magic that happens when a team wins a baseball game they were not expected to.

Okay, so this is an upset story. Yes, that’s true to a large degree. I was coaching with another father who had a son on the team as well. We had coached together for several years which was typical of many of the ‘Dad’ coaches. Like all of the teams, we had some very good players and some not-so-good players. Our regular season was okay in that we won more games than we lost but only barely. The #1 team in the league — a perennial contender — was a dominant team that spring winning something like 14 or 15 out of 16 games coming into the championship game. Their coach had played minor league baseball and had forgotten more baseball than I knew. They had cooler drills than we did and did stuff in practice and games that we did not do. They were better than us in virtually every way.

My son was not a star on the team, but my co-coach had a son who was 6 feet tall at age 11. He was also a good but not great player. He was bigger at 12 such that he had to bring a birth certificate to games to prove he was not too old to play. This was even before Danny Almonte for those who remember that fiasco. I remember we had a kid join the team after the season had started who had just moved into town. He was better than just about everyone on the team and hit home runs. We didn’t have players hitting many if any home runs.

It was June, it was hot, and there were mainly parents in the bleachers at the YMCA field. My guess is the parents had some idea that one of the two teams was a juggernaut and the other was the opposition. The game did not start well for our boys. Somehow by the third inning, we were down 14-2 and the boys (as well as the parents and coaches) were looking dejected. After we went down by that ugly score for whatever reason I decided to do my best motivating speech. It was not planned. I remember looking at the kids and yelling at them, “Do any of you really believe we cannot come back and win this game? Do you?” The kids and probably my fellow coach looked at me sideways but reluctantly agreed that they had a chance. Did I mention we were down 14-2? As I was spouting off this motivational masterpiece I was thinking, “What are you doing??”

The game progressed. We scored a few runs and held them down from scoring. Coming into the top of the last inning — the sixth inning in Little League — we trailed 14-6. Then the impossible happened. Mostly walks (hey this was Little League), and a few well-timed and well-placed hits had us score eight runs and we still had runners on second and third with two out. A wild pitch off the backstop enabled a kid named Thorne (his first name) who was not fast, to run down the line and slide home safely. Everyone in the dugout and in the stands was going crazy. We had a 15-14 lead! But the game wasn’t over yet.

Bottom of the sixth and we bring in our closer. Or what we hoped was our closer. This kid was always one of the best athletes from the time I coached him in soccer at age six when I had to tell him to stop scoring to let the other kids have a chance. He said, “But I can score every time I have the ball.” Yeah, one of those kids. But he was an okay baseball player mainly one with a great arm. So, Jason comes into the game and promptly walks the bases loaded. And then the most extraordinary thing happened. He struck out the side. At ten years old. Still gives me chills. 

I’ve asked my son about his recollection of that experience, and he remembers winning, but not the particulars the way I do. He was also ten years old!  But my late father-in-law said then and for years after that it was the “greatest baseball game he’d ever seen.” I’ve never forgotten that and years later I know exactly how he felt. I can only image what it was like to be a player in a game like that. But at least I was there!

Mark Kolier

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