Coach Sic:Our Man in Newton

The role of a sports coach involves among other aspects, paternal surrogacy and the role of whipping boy. There are times when the pressure to win and so great are parental expectations and dissatisfaction that even greater burdens are added to an already challenging task. All of which is to say that the men and women who to take up this kind of life’s work are special.

Coach by Micheal Lewis

Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Flash Boys)wrote an homage to his high school baseball coach in a small tome,entitled Coach.That man, Billy Fitzgerald, known universally as Coach Fitz, was a controversial figure and had aroused the ire of a number parents. One parent demurred:

A couple of those guys won’t talk to me,” he said, ”because I defended Fitz. But what can I do? My goal in life is not for my son to play college ball. Fitz has made my kid a better person, not just a better athlete. He’s taught him that if he works at it, anything he wants, it’s there for him.’

And Lewis concludes

We listened to the man because he had something to tell us, and us alone. Not how to play baseball, though he did that better than anyone. Not how to win, though winning was wonderful. Not even how to sacrifice. He was teaching us something far more important: how to cope with the two greatest enemies of a well-lived life, fear and failure. To make the lesson stick, he made sure we encountered enough of both. I never could have explained at the time what he had done for me, but I felt it in my bones all the same.

Coach Joseph Siciliano is one of the people that has dedicated a lifetime to his work.He has coached the Newton North Baseball team for thirty years and has been enshrined Massachusetts Baseball Coach’s Hall of Fame. Coach (at some point that rubric takes on he role of an honorific) has experienced a full range of coaching experiences including the rare accomplishment of leading the Newton North Tigers to a State Championship. A short while after that we sat down to chat at our local coffee shoppe, The Keltic Krust.

Newton North HS Varsity Baseball coach Joe Sicliano (photo :Cheryl Clegg)

RB: I know a few things about you— I know that you recently won your 300th career victory as a coach. And, you’re in the Massachusetts Baseball Coach’s Hall of Fame.

JS: Yes.

RB: And you were at Ted Williams’s last game at Fenway Park. A momentous event.

JS: I saw it. Yes, it was.

RB: So fill me in. You were born where?

JS: In Boston, in 1946. Grew up in the North End until the 4th grade. Then we moved out to Newton. I had four brothers and one sister and most of us went to Sacred Heart High. My father taught at BC, so 5 out of 6 of us went to Boston College.

RB: So, you are pretty much a homeboy.

JS: Absolutely, absolutely. I always kid around that when I go on vacation I go out west to Framingham.

RB: How much has baseball and kid sports changed since you began coaching?

JS: You know when I first started coaching, even when I played—kids would say, “Okay it’s baseball season” and they would pick up a baseball bat. [Okay]It’s basketball season, “Let’s shoot.” Now in order to prepare for a sport you really —its like the pros. They used to just show up[at spring training], they used to sell cars in the off season. Now they hire nutritionists and trainers. It’s not gotten that bad in terms of high school sports but you know [that’s] what the kids are doing in the off season. And it almost prevents kids from being three sport athletes. It does. Two, the kids still can do it. Certain sports you can do it—football you just need the strength training. That’s good for everything. And then you can play another sport.

RB: And baseball, football and basketball seasons don’t overlap

JS: They don’t

RB: You could still do those three.

JS: Absolutely. But the skill in basketball and baseball —you very rarely see a kid who plays both. You see football and baseball , football and basketball—

RB: Why is that? Totally different physical attributes?

JS: Yea, in order to shine at baseball you have to be in the batting cage —it’s a skill. Basketball you have to be shooting all the time.

RB: I guess Michael Jordan [Jordan tried to play pro baseball] would be a prime example of what you are saying.

JS: Absolutely.

RB: Whatever happened to playground pick-up games? You can still find them in basketball—

JS: You know something, I worked for the Newton Recreation Department when I first got out of college— I taught and worked. And the parents would drop their kids off at the playground. We would have at Newton Center Playground two teams, an A and a B, under twelve year olds. And we would play other playgrounds. Now the Commissioner Russ Halloran said, we‘ll never see the end of this and he predicted there would be [baseball]camps and that’s what’s going on. At West Newton Common, right over there [Keltic Krust is a block away], from sunup until sundown, kids would be playing. Parents wouldn’t drop their kids off now. I can remember growing up in Newton Center— there were 6 kids in my family and we were the small [family]. There were the Eagans with 15 …and parents would drop their kids off. That’s how things have changed.

RB: I guess former pros started a shift with their camps,
cashing in on their names. But now everybody and their mother has an AAU program. It has become a big business.

JS: Absolutely, its big business. Okay, so you have your AAU programs right. There is an AAU guy who has just bought or developing a 20 million dollar complex in Northboro. It has four fields plus a medical office building where you get treated if you have a sore arm or something. Its incredible.

RB: If you spend 20 million, what does you revenue stream have to be? It’s a truism to say that money has corrupted pro sports. Money has corrupted college sports. Has it affected high school sports?

JS: It really hasn’t. Here’s the thing. An AAU program might cost 3000 to 4000 dollars. To me, it keeps the kids focused. It keeps them out of trouble. You don’t need a therapist. I mean really it is something —its not a bad way to go, if you have the money.

RB: When the parents are spending that kind of money the dynamic changes—their commitment to the sport changes.

JS: Yes.

RB: You pointed out to me that some of these programs perhaps are telling their players that they are better than they are.

JS: Whether you want it or not, there is always that thought that people running AAU are telling kids they are better than they are. Also, the kid listens to what he wants to hear and I think—I would hope for the most part at a certain point a youngster would say, “You know something, those kids are better. I am not going to get caught up. Let me look into something else.” I had a kid [on the high school team]who did AAU but he saw the writing on the wall. So what he did this year was, he was our manager. And he held a job. He’ll play summer ball. He had a real mature response to what was going on. You would hope that there’s adults in his life, who say, ”Here are your choices.” Which I think there were.

RB: In watching the Newton North baseball team I noticed you stress building a team—everyone has a job to do. Your vision is not to train future major leaguers.

JS: No. Some might end up there. But you know what is interesting—I’ll give you a great case in point. We always pride ourselves in saying we are going to work from 1 to 20 with your kid—we have 20 kids on the team. And there were times this year when we needed somebody. Because of injury or this or that and we coached that kid as though he was a starter. That’s one issue. The other thing is —I don’t know if you have seen the teams we played against but they have adult coaches on the sidelines. We have kids coaching and our 3rd base coach this year didn’t play very much but he was an integral part of the team. We picked off people at 3rd base. We never got picked off. We doubled people up. We didn’t get doubled up. Because of our kid coaches, who we value. And so we try, 1 through 20, to give them a job every game. Its something we have done all the time.

RB: I guess it should be obvious, but what is the feeling like after a championship season? How much different is this than your 29 other years of coaching?

JS: After this season, and I think there were even some kids that felt this—”we don’t get to practice tomorrow?” We just had a good time. And this isn’t true of every team —it makes it easy when you win. But the kids, I thought, worked hard at practice and had a good time. We use humor. At the end, personally I went, “No practice tomorrow, what are we going to do?” There was elation etc. etc. that we finally did it but there was, ”We love baseball what are we doing tomorrow?” Of course, half of them went on to the AAU season etc.

Newton North HS Varsity Baseball coach Joe Siciliano (photo :Cheryl Clegg)

RB: What are you going to do?

JS: I have the greatest summers, I really do. I just go watch the kids play. Sometimes I sit with the parents and criticize the coach too. (both laugh) [No]I don’t do that —maybe I think it.

RB: What do the players take away from this kind of season?

JS: That’s a great question. You’d hope—whether they do or not that the big thing in life—what to do when things are not going your way. That’s the big thing— hopefully, you just keep plugging at it, look at the positive. See how you can improve and one of the other things is, don’t think so much of the future—the end result. Just go out there and do a good job. And hopefully, these lessons—it all came to fruition. But even if we didn’t win it. The kids were the same. There were many, many cases where things weren’t going our way but somebody picked us up. Through positive energy.

RB: Watching the NBA championship it was a thrill to see the truly good guys[not simply the best players]win. The Spurs seem to be the most obvious example of team building—everybody has a role. They don’t see themselves as stars…

JS: Absolutely. Because of our baseball I didn’t watch the finals until last night. It was amazing. Have you seen our basketball team? You have to go see them. They were—that’s what we do. We do have an outstanding scorer…but everybody has a part.That was amazing —just watching the difference it will be interesting, next year or the year after, are people going to pick up on what they [ the Spurs] are doing. And will we see better basketball?

RB: The Spurs having been doing what they do for a long time. Finally, there is the recognition.

JS: That’s true too.

RB: This is speculative but next spring you show up a the field the first day and you have bunch of kids— where do you start? Do you talk about the championship season?

JS: I don’t know. There were things—there were strengths of this team , okay. And you really can’t match the strengths that we had. But where we were weak maybe we can build that up. Maybe we won’t be as strong, for instance with pitching but if we can get to certain level and then pick up some other stuff. And again, our goal every season is to be competitive in every game. That’s all we want to do, you know?

RB: As champions other teams will no doubt play harder—

JS: Yeah, I know people say that now we have target on our back. But how does that motivate the kids? No, we have to play our way. I’ll give you a great case in point as the head coach. Ready? I have Tommy Donnellan, I have my JV and freshman coaches working. They give those kids discipline. They teach them fundamentals. What does a head coach do?— when they are playing a team that wasn’t that good you get the kids up. When you are playing a team that’s very good, calm them down. And you just go out and play fundamentals. What we teach them, that’s what we do. One of the big things is we do not emphasize the results. Our whole thing with at-bats—don’t worry about striking out. Your at bats are information gathering.

RB: How much has the sabermetric movement affected baseball at the high school level?

JS: You know something, they do that over many, many baseball games. So then they say this, they say, which I don’t agree with, at the major league level that you will score more from 1st with no outs, than 2nd with one. Therefore, don’t bunt. At the high school level, bunt. Because they are kids and they will throw it[the ball] away. But there certain other ideas like getting [deep]into a count. One of the things we look at is—we had a kid do stats, he wanted to major in statistics in college—one of the big ones [stats] we had him look at, when you have 2 strikes how many more pitches do you make the pitcher pitch? And its good because the kids know we value that.

RB: Today on base percentage means a lot— I don’t know if it is a more valuable metric than batting average. I am still amazed by Ted Williams’s life time on base percentage—.442. That seems more valuable than his other achievements.

JS: Absolutely.

RB: Did you aspire to anything else? A college coach?

JS: No, you know what it is it—when I was in high school, I wanted to be a major leaguer. Once I was not going to be a major leaguer —well, I wanted to do something that deals with sports.” How ‘bout being a coach? Wait a minute if I am going to coach in high school I have to teach.” What were they looking for back then? Math teachers. And its interesting— I teach math but there is a correlation, I find in terms of the way you teach math and the way you teach sports. There is a system. What happens when there is a deviation ? How do you handle that?

RB: Sorry, you will never convince me that you need algebra.

JS: (laughs)

RB: I have gone my whole life without using Algebra. Now the emphasis on the Core claims you need Algebra to succeed in life. Really?

JS: All that is, is thinking logically. Solving problems, that’s the whole thing. And where in Algebra you have to memorize some stuff and use that stuff if you already knew that stuff —its logic that’s all it is.

RB: So you became a math teacher as pathway to coaching?

JS: Don’t tell anybody this? (laughs) I ‘m kidding but its true. Here’s a case—I would start a problem—I wasn’t that good in math but I’d start a problem and all of a sudden it’s 3 o’clock in the morning. I found it fascinating. So time flew when I was doing math. That’s why I kind of liked it.

Newton North HS Varsity Baseball coach Joe Siciliano (photo :Cheryl Clegg)

RB: I imagine coaching sports is now valued as much as the teaching the curriculum. Maybe in some places, more.

JS: Yeah, as we say, coaching is an extension of the classroom If you look at [Newton]North—this is why we have ben so successful. A lot of the coaches are teaching in the school. Here’s some examples—in our math corridor, okay, Leigh Paris is the assistant coach of the state [championship title]winning soccer team. There is a male teacher who is the assistant coach of the state winning [championship title]boy’s track team. Another math teacher who is the assistant to the state winning[championship title] girl’s track team.Four math teachers who are also coaches

RB: What are your thoughts on the diminution of the popularity of baseball?

JS: I have been talking to the Little Leagues and they are losing a lot of kids. And the thing is I can live with that as long as the kids who are playing now are passionate about it. It is one tough sport. Plus, the way kids who are brought up now, they are easily frustrated. The failure rate in baseball is 70 %.

RB: I see it now as a Little League umpire. Most of the kids have to stand around waiting for something to happen. That’s why I pointed my own son in the direction of being a catcher.

JS: Yeah (laughs), Its interesting — a lot of these lacrosse players,if they ever were catchers they would still be playing baseball. But you put them in right field or center field—it takes an interesting individual. Some of the fathers, “my son is interested in baseball, you like those kids and if they can play that’s even better. You like kids who are watching the Red Sox or this and that.

RB: I have been very surprised at how few kids watch baseball games. So when they came to play, they have no idea what was going on, on field.

JS: When we were going up if we could watch a game on television it was so much fun. Now, you ask the whole team, 1 through 20, anybody watch the game last night? Well, they are doing homework but did anyone watch a couple of innings?

RB: Or even listen to it on the radio? Some announcers are better than TV.

JS: I watch MLB TV and there is a game every night. I’ll tell you, how can I get mad at my players when they are doing something stupid when I see the major leaguers—oh my goodness. You see some of that stuff—not knowing how many outs there were, things like that.

RB: I was watching the highlights of [Yoenis] Cespedes’s latest outfield assists. Gunning down runners at the plate with a 300 foot bullet from left field.

JS: Oh my goodness. Just unbelievable.

RB: It’s great to watch pros with a passion for the game.

JS: Yeah, we have Dustin (Pedroia). You read about him—he gets to the field early. And just loves to be around the game.

RB It’s a joy to see in Little League, although some of the parents need to tamp down their passion.

JS: I’ll tell you there is a community that we’d play against. I can remember when my kid was little, the coaches for this community, they were so intense and the kids were so tight. Meanwhile, they had an article a few years back about how Little League was going down, the kids don’t want to play because its no fun. You hear these stories about Little League parents are yelling at the kids and that’s a shame. The kids want to have fun.

Newton North HS Varsity Baseball coach Joe Siciliano (photo :Cheryl Clegg)

RB: But now they have choices— lacrosse, soccer, hockey.

JS: Auburndale was hotbed of hockey and we were very, very good, way back when, in the 50’s. Legendary names but we don’t see that anymore.

RB: In Newton when you go to a football game its like Friday Night Lights. The town turns out. I don’t see that for baseball.

JS: You might have gone to the night game when everybody shows up. Maybe not so for afternoon games.

RB: Maybe not midweek but Saturday games same thing.

JS: Here’s the thing, in baseball think about the weather that we have to play in. So that’s number one. But number two, think of the time of day we play. 3:45.

RB: I get it.

JS: If your son or daughter is on the team, then you are going to make a commitment to try to get there. And now there are a lot of other choices and interests, I think, and this would never happen but if they ever put lights at the high school, you would have a great—

RB—By the way, what happened here? No lights for the football filed, no lights for the baseball diamond. Why?

JS: Ah, this is Newton. You’d have to have an act of God to get something through like that. I mean, really and truly. We play Norwood ,okay. On a Monday. 300 or 400 people show up at that game at night. If you have lights …on a Friday night we’d have 500 people watching our team.

RB: There was a rumor floating around that Pepsi had offered a deal to put an electric scoreboard at Albemarle in exchange for the usual considerations [logo placement].

JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We hear things like that.

RB: I thought that corporate branding was verboten on school property?

JS: Theoretically, but you can get a waiver —there is one at the [Newton] South field. So I am sure you can get a waiver. But historically Newton does not encourage that type of stuff.

RB: So you’ll watch baseball all summer .

JS: All summer.

RB: And in the fall?

JS: I go watch football. (both laugh) And I teach math. You know what’s funny, a lot of our kids play football. If they played soccer I’d go watch them play. Its good to see them play other sports, to see how they handle adversity and how they handle other coaches. And they are not using the same muscles—they are using different muscles and for baseball that’s a good thing.

RB: What sports do you like?

JS: I coach the JV basketball and we have a terrific head coach. You learn a lot about working with kids.

RB: I am told that because of Newton North’s special ed program lots of families try to move into the school district and 600 out of 1800 students are in special ed programs.

JS: When you say special ed, its different today. Say a kid has a tough time finishing tests. Because he processes a little more slowly. So they call [the programs dealing with ]that special ed. Ten years ago, fifteen years ago that would n’t be special ed. There are severe cases and the there’s stuff that you and I probably have. I found very bright kids, if you just say “slow down.”,they can do very,very well.

RB: It seems lots of things were not previously diagnosed. Anger management? Was there that when we were kids?

JS: (laughs) No.

RB: What is your sense of the spans of attention of today’s students?

JS: With television and other things its not that great. And you do have kids who are into academics but there are probably less of them than in years past. There are a lot of distractions You should see at the end of a game —not just our team—every body goes for their phone.

RB: Personally, I am working on trying to reduce the amount of times I check my e mail.

JS: Yeah and then you’d have 20 or 30 or so. I just talked to our athletic director—if he doesn’t pick it up on the weekend when he comes in a Monday he’s got over a 100. Ridiculous.

RB: Yea—You learn that you can e-mail any time and people will respond any time. There doesn’t seem to be business hours for email. So, do you think about retiring? Is there a required age?

Newton North HS Varsity Baseball coach Joe Siciliano (photo Robert Birnbaum

JS: Interestingly, my father taught at BC and they forced him to retire at 65. Now this is many years ago—there was a law. He said it was the biggest mistake that he made —was retiring. I can remember going to the state house doing something —that law was coming up. At this stage what is the new 50 is the old 40? It’ll hit me physically that I can’t do it. But at this point it really hasn’t occurred to me, other than when somebody brings it up—“when are you going to retire?”

RB: Whoops. Sorry

JS: My father is 98 year old and I keep telling him to do crossword puzzles especially when he starts forgetting stuff. But he’s still sharp. He still drives.

RB: How does he do?

JS: Great. His whole reason for being is to get a great deal on groceries. So there are three places he goes. He say’s ,”Joe , these grapes were $3 here and a buck ninety eight there.” That keeps him sharp.

RB: Do you still go to major league games?

JS: Once in while. I’m going to tell you something —if I could go to a [American] Legion game or the Red Sox, I would go to a Legion game. The kids, just watching those kids play how they handle stuff. I scouted a lot of games this year. What I saw, the biggest play—double plays —you have to get get one. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a big inning because they rushed the double play.

RB: Thanks so much for your time and this conversation.

JS: Sure, my pleasure

RB: If I think of anything else, I know where to find you—

JS: Yeah, at some field.

Baseball signed by Coach Joe Siciliano [photo:Robert Birnbaum]

Currently reading As They See Them by Bruce Weber (Scribner)

How Blue Can You Get?

Robert Birnbaum’s only ‘selfie ‘[photo: Robert Birnbaum]

Last night, after umpiring a Little League game of the local 11 year old all stars, I had pause to reflect on my having reached the golden age of two-thirds of a century and discovering a new avocation: umpiring kid’s baseball. It seems that, gradually, over the past five or 6 years, I have morphed from being a standby,fill-in umpire, to this year, refereeing over 40 games.

Considering my anti-authoritarian pathology, the irony of my new role hums along as an air of bemusement through every game in which I am involved and even some that I just spectate. Which is not to say that I don’t take the task of running a game seriously— I do.

Now granted I am drawing from a very small sample size but I am of the belief that I may be the only anarchist baseball umpire on the East Coast(thankfully, no one is going to ask me to prove that assertion). I am also distinguishable from patched (certified )umpires who see what they do as income producing— and yet I haven’t met any who did not also love baseball. But after that, the commonality ends—which an indirect way of saying it takes all kinds.

For a life-long baseball fan (like me) viewing a baseball game as a judicial presence is a rarified and most revealing perspective from which to add the kind of minutiae to the never-ending body of knowledge that dedicated fans are constantly accumulating. And that accrual is one of the elements of the game that makes baseball fascinating.

The bibliography on the subject of umpiring (except for instruction manuals) is not extensive but then for the most part umpires are usually only noticed when one of the participants feels wronged and obliged to seek redress.Then fans are treated to uncommon behavior of adult temper tantrums (of which few artful practitioners remain—no dirt kicking Lou Pinellas, rabid gesticulators like Earl Weaver or tragically wronged victims like Jim Leyland). One rarely hears in the post game wrap up, “And tonight’s umpiring crew did a excellent job.”

Here are a handful of books that reveal the men behind the masks:

Remembrance of Swings Past by Ron Luciano

Looking back to the 80’s, it seems that Ron Luciano was the most (perhaps only) visible MLB umpire, publishing (purportedly)cleverly entitled books such asThe Umpire Strikes Back and The Fall of the Roman Umpire. and Remembrance of Swings Past. Luciano’s career-long arch rival,Baltimore Orioles’s manager, Earl Weaver opined of Luciano, he was “one of the few umpires people have paid their way into the park to see.” And Luciano pays back the compliment, observing of Weaver:

The problem with Earl [Weaver] is that he holds a grudge. Other managers, if they disagree with a call, may holler and shout, but you can still go out for a beer with them after the game. Not Earl. He never forgets. Heck, he even holds your minor league record against you. Once, a couple of years ago, I made a controversial call at the plate. Earl charged out of the dugout, screaming that that was the same call I’d blown at Elmira in ’66. That sort of thing can get to you.

Sadly, Luciano committed suicide in 1995 at age of 57.

Called Out But Safe by Al Clark

Twenty five year veteran American League Umpire Al Clark who covered over 3000 games and a couple of World Series, accounts for his life in baseball. And his fall from grace when he was fired for travel expenses irregularities in 2001 and then in 2004 when he was convicted of mail fraud connected to the sale of baseball memorabilia in Called Out but Safe: A Baseball Umpire’s Journey (University of Nebraska Press) In addition to being one of a very small number of Jewish arbiters,Clark claims to have the distinction of suffering a hernia as he enthusiastically threw someone out of a game.

They Called Me God by Doug Harvey

After 30 years, Hall of Fame Umpire, Doug Harvey retired in 1992 with 4673 games under his belt. His memoir (with the hyperbolic title) written with Peter Golenbock,They Called Me God: The Best Umpire Who Ever Lived (Gallery Books) is chocked full,as expected, of colorful anecdotes that include baseball legends such as Sandy Koufax, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Leo Durocher, Sparky Anderson, Tommy Lasorda, and Walter Alston. Harvey adds charmed bits of baseball lore to ever expanding history of our once and future national pastime

Nobody’s Perfect by Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce

The degree of difficulty in pitching a perfect game in baseball should be obvious when you consider the numbers— in almost 400,000 major league games there have only been twenty. The ostensible 21st is the subject of Nobody’s Perfect: Two Men, One Call,and a Game for Baseball History(Grove Atlantic) by Armando Galarraga, Jim Joyce.* On June 2, 2010, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga threw what appeared to be like baseball’s twenty-first perfect game. Unfortunately, veteran umpire Jim Joyce (who is in the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame) missed the call on the final out at first base. After viewing the replay Joyce observed “No, I did not get the call correct,I kicked the shit out of it.” And Galarraga? He got the final out and when asked about the play offered,“Nobody’s perfect.” The pair were widely praised in the sports chattering classes for the grace with which this incident was handled—and thus the book accounts for this singular baseball moment.

AsThey See Em by Bruce Weber

Veteran New York Timesman Bruce Weber who actually went to umpire school interviewed over 200 men in blue to create this insightful peek into the otherwise mysterious world of baseball umpires in As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires (Scribner). Along the way we learn about QuesTec, the system of cameras and computers that measures umpires’ plate performances during regular season games. And most enlighteningly (sic), that although they are “held together by the powerful bond of their singular profession, umpires are a dysfunctional family, at odds with players, management and one another” Weber also points out that the pay is not lucrative and there’s no real job security and “that few fathers light up cigars, point to their babies and say, ‘That kid is going to be a major league umpire.'” Still, hundreds continue signing up for umpire school, as they say,”chasin’ the dream”.

You’re The Umpire by Wayne Stewart

When I reveal to people that I umpire little league— I eventually get around to asserting that every fan of the game should try their hand at it— insight into the game of baseball increases exponentially (well, it did for me). Wayne Stewart’s You’re the Umpire: 139 Scenarios to Test Your Baseball Knowledge (Skyhorse Publishing)doesn’t put you on the field but it does give you a sense of the density and sometimes obscurity of the code that governs baseball play.

It should not go unsaid that I have seen bad adult behavior at kid baseball games and have been subjected to all manner of passive aggressive acting out by parents and coaches. Thankfully none has risen to the level of violence that saw a soccer referee in Michigan die from parental assault. But it does give one pause to think when I see someone exhibiting poor impulse control and weak anger management

* , The old saw “Nobody’s perfect” is also the title of the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane’s anthology which we attributed to legendary director Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot):

Billy Wilder’s Headstone

Currently reading Death of A River Guide by Richard Flanagan (Grove/Atlantic)

Great Day in Mudville

Newton North Tigers Baseball squad celebrates 14th inning win vs Catholic Memorial (photo: Cheryl Clegg)

I grew up in Chicago near Wrigley Field. Cubs’s fans cheers resounded though out the neighborhood with a Cubbie home run. I remember one of Mayor Daley’s patronage office holders (the fire commissioner?) turning on the the toddling town’s air raid sirens to celebrate the 1959 White Sox American League championship (the White Sox lost to the by-thenThen LA Dodgers 4 games to 2).

But that’s where my troubles began—when I was afflicted by the baseball germ.

Of course, I wanted to play baseball and tried out for my high school team where my dissonant relationship with the coach reached its logical conclusion. I played one season of Pony League and switched over to bar league softball.

Anyway, yesterday I watched my hometown high school baseball team, the Newton North Tigers, complete their two day (the game was called in the 13th inning on account of darkness,* with the score tied 4-4) first playoff game in the 14th inning vs Catholic Memorial—an inning that lasted all of 20 minutes(the teams spent more time warming up)with an exciting bit of baseball magic.

Ben Porter purloins 2nd Base (photo; Robert Birnbaum)

With two outs in the Tigers’s half of the penultimate inning, the speedy and crafty Ben Porter, worked the count to 3-2 and with amazing speed beat out a grounder to the shortstop. As he has been known to do his entire baseball career, Ben stole 2nd base handily. This brought second basemen Johnny Little( aka Johnny Baseball) to the plate. Now my son played one season of Babe Ruth Baseball(on Paul Howley’s Warriors) with Johnny and we both shared the opinion that this Little kid was a quintessential ballplayer. Anyway, Little singled up the middle, Ben Porter scored from second easily. Game over,Tigers, 5 CM 4.

Ben Porter scores the winning run (photo Robert Birnbaum)

Thankfully, unlike most high school baseball games this 2 day affair was well-attended( school football games are like Friday Night Lights. And the sense of joy was palpable—reminding me that watching kid sports were the closest one could come to enjoying the purity of sports. Parents, friends relatives, scouts,media, the town’s altekockers comprised the audience and the Tigers’s victory—both its exciting manner and the fact that the team battled back after falling behind early, brought joy to the land.

This championship season, no doubt, has many authors, not the least the players on the squad. But it should not go unsaid that the Tigers’s coaches clearly have melded a diverse pack of boys into a high functioning team. The Tigers’s season earned run average was 0.50 over 20 games. A number I find as impressive as Ted Williams’s life time on base percentage (.452)…

Up until recently, all I knew about head coach Joe Sicliano was that during this run he had achieved 300 career victories as a coach and that he had been at Ted Williams’s last game at Fenway Park, an event immortalized by John Updike. Thanks to a unusually straightforward piece by the acid-penned Dan Shaughnessy, I know a bit more—such as Siciliano was inducted into the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame last winter.

The Tigers play next on Sunday in Brockton MA—games I will have to miss as I am umpiring 2 Little League games. Hopefully some of those Little Leaguers will be playing for the Tigers in a few years.

Go you Tigers!

*imagine a $200 million dollar school campus with unlit athletic fields ( a throwback move or a funding problem?)