The Millinocket players seem surprised by the gesture, and they don’t know exactly what to do with the pennants as someone’s tape player begins to warble out the Anita Bryant version of ‘The
Star-Spangled Banner.’ The Millinocket catcher, almost buried beneath his gear, solves the problem in unique fashion: he holds his Bangor pennant over his heart.
With the amenities taken care of, Bangor West administers a brisk and thorough trouncing; the final score is Bangor West 18, Millinocket 7. The loss does not devalue the souvenirs, however; when Millinocket departs on the team bus, the visitors’ dugout is empty save for a few Dixie cups and Popsicle sticks. The pennants — every single one of them — are gone.
‘Cut two! ‘ Neil Waterman, Bangor West’s field coach, shouts. ‘Cut two, cut two! ‘
It’s the day after the Millinocket game. Everyone on the team is still showing up for practice, but it’s early yet. Attrition will set in. That is a given: parents are not always willing to give up summer plans so their kids can play Little League after the regular, May-June season is over, and sometimes the kids themselves tire of the constant grind of practice. Some would rather be riding their bikes, trying to hang ten on their skateboards, or just hanging around the community pool and checking out the girls.
‘Cut two!’ Waterman yells. He is a small, compact man in khaki shorts and a Joe Coach crewcut. In real life he is a teacher and a college basketball coach, but this summer he is trying to teach these boys that baseball has more in common with chess than many would ever have believed. Know your play, he tells them over and over again. Know who it is you’re backing up.
Most important of all, know who your cut man is in every situation, and be able to hit him. He works patiently at showing them the truth that hides at the center of the game: that it is played more in the mind than with the body.
Ryan Larrobino, Bangor West’s center fielder, fires a bullet to Casey Kinney at second base.
Casey tags an invisible runner, pivots, and throws another bullet to home, where J. J. Fiddler takes the throw and tosses the ball back to Waterman.
‘Double-play ball!’ Waterman shouts, and hits one to Matt Kinney (not related to Casey). Matt is playing shortstop at practice today. The ball takes a funny hop and appears to be on its way to left center. Matt knocks it down, picks it up, and feeds to Casey at second; Casey pivots and throws to Mike Arnold, who is on first. Mike feeds it home to J.J.
‘All right!’ Waterman shouts. ‘Good job, Matt Kinney! Good job! One-two-one! You’re covering, Mike Pelkey!’ The two names. Always the two names, to avoid confusion. The team is lousy with Matts, Mikes, and guys named Kinney.
The throws are executed flawlessly. Mike Pelkey, Bangor West’s number two pitcher, is right where he’s supposed to be, covering first. It’s a move he doesn’t always remember to make, but this time he does. He grins and trots back to the mound as Neil Waterman gets ready to hit the next combination.
‘This is the best Little League All-Star team I’ve seen in years,’ Dave Mansfield says some days after Bangor West’s trouncing of Millinocket. He dumps a load of sunflower seeds into his mouth and begins to chew them. He spits hulls casually as he talks. ‘I don’t think they can be beaten — at least not in this division.’
He pauses and watches as Mike Arnold breaks toward the plate from first, grabs a practice bunt, and whirls toward the bag. He cocks his arm back — then holds the ball. Mike Pelkey is still on the mound; this time he has forgotten that it is his job to cover, and the bag is undefended. He flashes Dave a quick guilty glance. Then he breaks into a sunny grin and gets ready to do it again. Next time he’ll do it right, but will he remember to do it right during a game?
‘Of course, we can beat ourselves,’ Dave says. ‘That’s how it usually happens.’ And, raising his voice, he bellows, ‘Where were you, Mike Pelkey? You’re s’posed to be covering first!’
Mike nods and trots over — better late than never.
‘Brewer,’ Dave says, and shakes his head. ‘Brewer at their field. That’ll be tough. Brewer’s always tough.’
Bangor West does not trounce Brewer, but they win their first ‘road game’ without any real strain. Matt Kinney, the team’s number one pitcher, is in good form. He is far from overpowering, but his fastball has a sneaky, snaky little hop, and he also has a modest but effective breaking pitch. Ron St. Pierre is fond of saying that every Little League pitcher in America thinks he’s got a killer curveball. ‘What they think is a curve is usually this big lollipop change,’ he says. ‘A batter with a little self-discipline can kill the poor thing.’
Matt Kinney’s curveball actually curves, however, and tonight he goes the distance and strikes out eight. Probably more important, he walks only four. Walks are the bane of a Little League coach’s existence. ‘They kill you,’ Neil Waterman says. ‘The walks kill you every time.
Absolutely no exceptions. Sixty per cent of batters walked score in Little League games.’ Not in this game: two of the batters Kinney walks are forced at second; the other two are stranded. Only one Brewer batter gets a hit: Denise Hewes, the center fielder, singles with one out in the fifth, but she is forced at second.
After the game is safely in the bag, Matt Kinney, a solemn and almost eerily self-possessed boy, flashes Dave a rare smile, revealing a set of neat braces. ‘She could hit!’ he says, almost reverently.
‘Wait until you see Hampden,’ Dave says dryly. ‘They all hit.’
When the Hampden squad shows up at Bangor West’s field, behind the Coke plant, on July 17th, they quickly prove Dave right. Mike Pelkey has pretty good stuff and better control than he had against Millinocket, but he isn’t much of a mystery to the Hampden boys. Mike Tardif, a compact kid with an amazingly fast bat, rips Pelkey’s third pitch over the left-field fence, two hundred feet away, for a home run in the first inning. Hampden adds two more runs in the second, and leads Bangor West 3-0.
In the third, however, Bangor West breaks loose. Hampden’s pitching is good, Hampden’s hitting is awesome, but Hampden’s fielding, particularly infielding, leaves something to be desired. Bangor West puts three hits together with five errors and two walks to score seven runs.
This is how Little League is most often played, and seven runs should be enough, but they aren’t; the opposition chips stubbornly away, getting two in its half of the third and two more in the fifth. When Hampden comes up in the bottom of the sixth, it is trailing by only three, 10-7.
Kyle King, a twelve-year-old who started for Hampden this evening and then went to catcher in the fifth, leads off the bottom of the sixth with a double. Then Mike Pelkey strikes out Mike Tardif. Mike Wentworth, the new Hampden pitcher, singles to deep short. King and Wentworth advance on a passed ball, but are forced to hold when Jeff Carson grounds back to the pitcher.
This brings up Josh Jamieson, one of five Hampden home-run threats, with two on and two out.
He represents the tying run.
Mike, although clearly tired, finds a little extra and strikes him out on a one-two pitch. The game is over.
The kids line up and give each other the custom-ordained high fives, but it’s clear that Mike isn’t the only kid who is simply exhausted after the match; with their slumped shoulders and
lowered heads, they all look like losers. Bangor West is now 3-0 in divisional play, but the win is a fluke, the kind of game that makes Little League such a nerve-racking experience for spectators, coaches, and the players themselves. Usually sure-handed in the field, Bangor West has tonight committed something like nine errors.
‘I didn’t sleep all night,’ Dave mutters at practice the next day. ‘Damn, we were outplayed. We should have lost that game.’
Two nights later, he has something else to feel gloomy about. He and Ron St. Pierre make the six-mile trip to Hampden to watch Kyle King and his mates play Brewer. This is no scouting expedition; Bangor has played both clubs, and both men have copious notes. What they are really hoping to see, Dave admits, is Brewer getting lucky and putting Hampden out of the way.
It doesn’t happen; what they see isn’t a baseball game but gunnery practice.
Josh Jamieson, who struck out in the clutch against Mike Pelkey, clouts a home run over everything and into the Hampden practice field. Nor is Jamieson alone. Carson hits one, Wentworth hits one, and Tardif hits a pair. The final score is Hampden 21, Brewer 9.