Baseball

“PLAY BALL, CHUCK!”

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Baseball coaches and umpires seem, at best, to have contentious relationships although to “toot” my own horn, I really attempted to cultivate umpires rather than alienate them and most of the time I believe I was successful.  Yes, I’m happy to say Tommy and I buried the hatchet before he died and we didn’t bury it in each other.

Chuck Eaton has passed away.  Another of my adulthood friends has gone to his reward.  Chuck and I began our careers in baseball about the same time, he as an umpire and I as a coach.  I can’t count the number of times he called games involving one of my teams but it would have had to be in the dozens.  I can remember the first one and the last one and over forty years, I’m just not sure who cultivated whom.  My problem with Chuck was he reminded me too much of my dad, somewhat in looks but more in his quiet and respectful demeanor.  I guess maybe he cultivated me.

I remember when I first ran afoul of Chuck.  It was one of my first games as a JV coach at Mauldin, a high school outside of Greenville, South Carolina.  Chuck was behind the plate, a young umpire but not a young man.  At the time, I did not realize he had retired from twenty years of military service.  I believed the opposing catcher had interfered with my batter’s attempt to bunt the ball.  Chuck quietly said, “No coach, the pitch was too high to be bunted anyway.”  Ordinarily, such a comment would not have been a good start to a relationship between a coach and umpire but somehow, we were able to get by it.

I learned of his military service on a cool moist night at Riverside High School.  We were both older and wiser but I’m sure my interaction with him was somewhat subdued because of the fact we were well ahead.  He was behind the plate, and even though it was late in the game, Chuck had still not settled on a consistent strike zone and my fans were unmerciful in their criticism and accused him of changing his strike zone from pitch to pitch.  Walking to the batting circle to make a lineup change, I decided to engage him in friendly banter.

“Chuck, my fans are pretty vocal about your strike zone.  I’d like to apologize for them but to be honest, I agree with them.”

In his quiet voice, he explained, “Coach, I know they think they are getting to me but I flew single engine props for the Forward Air Control during Vietnam.  This is nothing compared to that.”  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Forward Air Control, they flew unarmed, slow moving propeller driven aircraft called “targets”.  One of their functions was to attract ground fire so the fast moving, armed guys could swoop in and get all the glory.

Chuck was that kind of guy, not looking for the glory.  He enjoyed being a part of the game of baseball and the game called life.  During our many phone calls rescheduling games, he never failed to ask about my family and was quick to offer tidbits about his own, including the daughter I taught at Mauldin.  He was, as we all should be, quite proud of his family.  When we met for the last time on a field of play some three years ago, his first question was, “How is the Missus?”

It was always comfortable to know Chuck was somewhere around and I’ll miss him.  As usual, I wish I had kept in close contact.  I do feel comfort in his strong faith and I’m sure that if heaven exists, he’s already trying to organize a game.  I’m sure his strike zone will be a bit more consistent unless he just misses those coaches and fans yelling at him.  “Play Ball, Chuck!”

A PLAYER…ALL GROWN UP

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For a guy who coached high school baseball for over thirty years, I don’t go to many high school baseball games. Just four this season. I feel a little guilty about not going but have found if I haven’t invested in the kids playing, I’m just as happy to catch a few innings of a collegiate or a pro game on the tube while relaxing on my recliner. Maybe I’m just being lazy.

Today was different. Instead of being lazy, I sat on the first base fence line watching a former player, Tim Perry, coach his high school team in our state high school playoffs. I might have been the only spectator who was more focused on the third base coaching box than the actual field of play.

The site of the game was a field where, in a past lifetime, I had wandered from the dugout to the third base coaching box and back again just like my former player was doing. I felt a certain kinship with him and understood the emotions he was possibly feeling. I watched him cheering, clapping, offering up nuggets of baseball knowledge and teaching the game. Picking his players up after an error or a strike out…no visible berating although I don’t know for sure what went on inside of the dugout…no berating I’m sure.

I was happy to be a spectator. The gut wrenching, acid churning and Tums gobbling days’ of “life or death” competition rest squarely on his much younger, broader shoulders and are, thankfully, in my rear-view mirror. I’d rather just cheer for him.

There is a comradery among coaches, even rival coaches, and these two knew each other well, having competed against each other since their little league playing days. After losing the second game, the district final, I wondered if they were still friends? Knowing Tim’s personality, I would guess yes.

When I first met Tim, he was a freckled faced ninth grader. He had one of those angelic faces that lit up the world when he smiled. Angelic face but full of “snips and snails, and puppy dog tails.” Short and just a few pounds past “stocky,” he resembled a “pleasingly plump” Alfalfa of Our Gang fame or maybe Howdy Doody of Buffalo Bob renown. If you look at him just right today, you can still see it.

Tim was trying out for our junior varsity team and had all the correct mechanics and moves, learned from hours of baseball camps and honed on hundreds of diamonds around the South, if not the nation. He looked good doing whatever he was doing. The problem was he looked good swinging through a lot of pitches, having a ball roll between his legs or having to line him up with a fence post to see if he was actually moving when he ran. I cut him. Doing so might, I say might, have been a mistake.

When a young kid gets cut he has a couple of options. He can allow it to ruin his athletic career, just quit and feel sorry for himself, or he can work harder and try again. I imagine you might guess which Tim did. It didn’t hurt he had a growing spurt over that next year, as in about six inches, a foot? No not that much but he was six foot plus by the time graduated. He turned into a good player, the ace of my pitching staff and good enough to play college ball. Yeah, maybe I made a mistake. I cherish the picture of us made when he signed his letter of intent to play for my old alma mater.

More importantly, and more to the point, he’s turned into a good man with a beautiful family. I watched a three-year-old boy run around and play as the game went on. He is Tim made over, a freckled faced little imp. The little boy’s mother and sister are pretty, brunette images of each other, thank goodness. I’m not sure how much Tim’s wife actually got to watch the game while keeping up with two fireballs. I know I never saw her sit down. Tim’s parents were there too, aging but still pulling for their son, always his biggest cheerleaders…and greatest teachers. How much support does someone deserve…a lot in Tim’s case.

I would guess it was heaven ordained Tim would become a baseball coach. He was already a coach when he played for me. Tim loved the game too much not to pursue that vocation along with a career in teaching despite a short tenure in the “real world,” the non-teaching world.

I’ve found there are two kinds of men who coach baseball…at least at the high school level. Those who coach the game for the game, and those who coach the kids. Over the years, I’ve found I don’t have much use for the men who coach the game just for the sake of winning championships…and I know, we’re all in it to win or you don’t stay in it very long. Observing Tim, I saw a coach who was coaching baseball but more importantly he was coaching kids and having fun doing it…and they were having fun too.

Tim, I’m glad you were mine for a brief period and happy you have turned into the man you’ve turned into. I hope you know how lucky you are to be that man. Maybe next year Coach…and I’m really sorry I made that mistake.

Don Miller writes “memories.” If you enjoyed this short essay, more may be purchased or downloaded at https://goo.gl/pL9bpP

TRIBUTE TO AN ICON

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I find political programming to be quite depressing, especially recently. Today when I should have been in church, but wasn’t for reasons beyond my control, I found myself being uplifted by Face the Nation, normally an impossibility. This day, host John Dickerson interviewed Vin Scully, the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers for six decades and a true ambassador for the game of baseball and all that is good about humankind. Vin was presented with one of the Presidential Medals of Freedom this past week, a wonderful choice by anyone’s standard.

I’ve never been a die-hard Dodger fan but there have been times…. During my childhood, I received a transistor radio for a birthday and remember listening to baseball games deep into the night when my parents thought I was asleep. Some nights Don Drysdale or Sandy Koufax might have been on the mound and if atmospheric conditions were perfect and they were playing on the East Coast, I might have heard the play by play by Vin Scully iconic voice.

During his interview, Vin Scully spoke of evenings spent lying under a four-legged Victrola as an eight-year-old listening to baseball games and dreaming that one day he would become a baseball announcer. I had similar dreams but mine were of performing inside of the foul lines, not outside of them. I am glad he realized HIS dreams.

Vin had one of those familiar voices that will be forever missed by me. I remember the 1988 World Series when Vin said into his microphone, “And look who’s coming up” as Kirk Gibson limped to the plate. With only one good leg Gibson drove the game winning home run over the right field wall as Scully said, “High fly ball into right field. She is gone! … In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

My greatest memory of Vin Scully making the call was on April 8, 1974, when Hank Aaron sent a fourth inning, Al Downing fastball into the left field Atlanta bullpen and himself into the record books. As Aaron rounded the bases, Scully said into his microphone, “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron.”

I will miss Vin Scully and hope that he enjoys his retirement as much as I enjoyed his work. What a glorious way to make a living…doing what you enjoy the most. Thank you, Vin Scully.

For more of Don Miller’s unique views of life, humor, and Southern stories of a bygone time, try http://goo.gl/lomuQf

LOVE CONQUERS ALL ‘COMERS’

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I don’t think Virgil, the originator of the quote “love conquers all,” had baseball in mind when he made it. He was dead several centuries before Abner Doubleday was “credited” with inventing the game but ‘love’ appeared to be the big equalizer in Coastal Carolina’s unexpected and unprecedented run to the College National Championship in Omaha.

Coach Gary Gilmore had his own quote which he just managed to choke out as tears rolled down his face. “We may not the most talented team in America but we are the champions.” Talent is a funny thing. Too much talent may not be enough to get you to the pinnacle of a championship if there are too many egos to deal with. Too little talent may not even get you into the same zip code. There has to be enough talent but talent will only take you so far. There has to be more and the Chanticleers displayed not only talent but all of the clichés we coaches have a tendency to use. Tenacity, heart, and hustle were but a few that I thought of but one that is often over looked, especially when it comes to men’s athletic endeavors, is the love that was apparent when these young men and their coaches took the field. It is a love only “championship” athletes and coaches can understand.

I had no expectations when Coastal took the field against the “Juggernaut” that was Florida. I remember telling my wife how small they looked compared to the Gators. By the time they recorded their last out against Arizona I found they had grown just a bit, at least in my estimation. Being able to continually find a way to “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat” takes much more than talent. I am reminded of a Lew Holtz story he told early in my coaching career when he coached at NC State. When questioning an undersized defensive end about his ability to “whip” a certain all-American offensive tackle, the young man exclaimed, “No Sir…but I’ll fight him till I die.” This was a mentality shown repeatedly by the Coastal team. Thankfully, no one was able to make the kill shot.

I only met Coach Gilmore twice during my career and I doubt he would even remember who I was. I remember him well from a clinic I attended and later when I got to coach the South Carolina team in the North Carolina-South Carolina Challenge held at the Chanticleer’s stadium. I remember he displayed two major attributes. Passion and Humility. I get to add another, love for his players. From listening to his players in their postgame news conference, his love was returned tenfold.

When I think of my most successful teams I can’t help but draw parallels. They were all talented enough to overcome bad coaching, mistakes, and poor officiating. All of them had a love for the game and a love for each other. They wanted to do whatever needed to done to win…not for themselves but for their teammates. Many times it is not the “nine best” that wins the championship. In Coastal Carolina’s case it was the “best nine,” or best twenty-five that came home with the gold. Congratulations Chanticleers. For this season at least, fairytale rooster or not, you are the “cocks of the walk.”

More humorous nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

MEMORIALS

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Memorial: something, especially a structure, established to remind people of a person or event.

I was approached over a year ago about tonight’s memorial and until a week ago I was able to keep all my memories locked safely away in my secret little lock box in a corner of my brain. Until a week ago…and its Michael Douty’s fault. Looking for a hat, the hat we wore in his memory the year after his death fell out of the armoire and into my hands. Upon seeing the number thirteen on the back there was an immediate flood of memories, most of which made me smile.
In my first attempt at writing badly, “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…,” my aim was to write a collection of humorous stories related to my forty years of teaching and coaching. It was Michael Douty’s fault that my purpose changed with the first story I actually sat down and wrote…his story. Michael’s antics were humorous and my intent was to begin the book with his story.

Unfortunately, his death wasn’t very humorous. No matter how I rewrote the story, it always ended badly, as did the endings to stories involving Tim Wilder, Heath Benedict, Tim Bright and Jeff Gully. While writing Michael’s story I found out Tim Bright was battling Stage IV colon cancer and realized my book was not beginning well. I ended up writing about them all, more about their lives than their deaths and the sweet memories they left for me. Later, after I had published the book, I was forced to write another story with a bad ending when Brian Kuykendall left me. All were former players and Brian gets the double whammy of being a former player and the father of a former player.

Jeff and Tim are joining Michael tonight. Plaques are going to be dedicated and theirs will join Douty’s plaque behind the backstop on the field they played on not so many years ago. I believe in ghosts and wonder if their spirits will visit our old field of dreams…I know they still visit me, especially on dark, moonless nights. For the last week, nightly they have also invaded my dreams.

I have an unshakable belief there is something more than death, that life simply just does not end. During a depressing early morning walk I came to a reality of sorts and found a bit of peace and comfort in a strange, cold and unlikely place…science. I came to this truth while standing in front of a cross. There is a scientific law that states “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Energy can only be changed.” I have taught Conservation of Energy thousands of times, but this cool morning it became more of an anodyne than just a cold scientific law. Call it heaven, Nirvana, a “wheel inside a wheel” or crossing the River Styx, their energy does not die.

I do tend to think of them on dark and clear nights when the stars seem close enough to touch. I described Tim’s light as the “brightest star” in the sky, Jeff as a photon flying in and out of our lives at light speed. Douty? I never described you. You would have to be a comet streaking through the sky, showing his tail in the reflected sunlight. There may be a hidden meaning behind that description and I am sure I just heard you laugh in the gusting wind. Gather them all together

SOMETHING ABOUT THE COLD

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Spring is right around the corner. I could feel it in the cold this morning. It was still twenty-nine degrees, plenty cold for here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, but there was a different feel to it. A feeling that winter’s death grip is loosening. A feeling that the rebirth I associate with spring might be on the horizon. It is a feeling of change. I know that winter will attempt to hang on. In this part of the world March snow storms are not uncommon and the last frost date is April fifteenth. BUT IT JUST FEELS DIFFERENT!

As a retired baseball coach my feelings of change may be tied to major league pitchers and catchers reporting to camp or the reports of high school and college scrimmages with their opening dates just around the corner. I remember a game finished in a heavy sleet and another with a wind chill so low that both pitchers combined to pitch a one hitter. I do not miss games in early March. No, winter will hold on as long as it can despite what a ground hog saw or didn’t see.

There are other harbingers. Crocus and buttercups are trying to push up toward the sun. I saw gold and purple finches at my feeder. Time to get some thistle. The main herald is my beautiful red tailed hawk. Well she is not mine but it is the third or fourth year she has made her nest in a dead oak tree on the hill above us. I hear her mating call and know there is a male somewhere and that it won’t be long until they will be training their little “branch hoppers” to fly and hunt.

If weather trends continue like the years before, there will be plenty of great days for baseball practice, a round of golf or even wetting a hook in late February and then March will come in like a lion with strong and mostly cold winds. I see there is possible snow coming next week but there is something about this cold.

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TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY: HENRY “HANK” AARON

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Henry Aaron was born today, eighty-two years ago in Mobile, Alabama. Known forever as the man who broke Babe Ruth’s career homerun record, a record he held for thirty-three years and a record I believe he would still hold had baseball not entered a period of illegal steroid use. He was much more that a homerun hitter or a baseball player for that matter. In addition to his career seven hundred and fifty-five home runs, he finished his career with over three thousand hits, a career .305 batting average, and major league records in runs-batted-in, extra base hits and total bases. He is also very proud of three Gold Gloves earned playing right field. In 1963, Henry came within a “whisker” of winning a Triple Crown. He led the league in homeruns (44), runs-batted-in (130) but finished third in batting average, hitting .323. Henry also became only the third person to hit over thirty homeruns and steal thirty bases.

Henry was much more than a baseball player. He was a great ambassador for his sport, his race and “human-kind.” Quiet to the point of being stoic, Henry was only known as “Hank” or “Hammering Hank” to the media or “Bad Henry” to opposing pitchers. For a man squarely in the limelight, it was illumination that he did not want. He only wanted to play the game well, something he did for nearly a quarter of a century. In 1973 and early 1974 no one other than Jackie Robinson had come under more racial pressure in sports than Henry Aaron as he approached Babe Ruth’s career homerun record. Henry broke it early in 1974.

Henry received a plaque from the US Postal Service for receiving nearly one million pieces of mail in 1973. Unfortunately, much of it was hate mail as a black man neared a white man’s record. There were also verbal taunts and death threats. Outwardly, Henry was a rock, mostly calm and quiet. Internally I’m sure he seethed. Sometimes it is what you don’t say that tells a story. In a 1974 interview, a visibly tired Aaron said, “I can’t recall a day, this year or last, when I did not hear the name Babe Ruth.”

Late in his career, I went to Fulton County Stadium to take in a double header. The woefully bad Braves were playing the woefully bad Mets but I didn’t care. I would see “Hammering Hank” and another Hall of Famer to be, “Say Hey” Willie Mays. Except I didn’t. Both Aaron and Mays got the day off and the only homeruns were hit by pitchers. “Story of my life!” At least Mays got to pinch hit late in the game. Happy Birthday Henry.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: JACKIE AND PEE WEE

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“I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin’ zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What’s more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded.” Short speech by Leo “the lip” Durocher, manager of the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, letting his team know that Jackie Robinson was in the “Bigs” to stay…with or without them.

April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to break the major league baseball “color line” since 1880. Normally a middle infielder, he started at first base that day because of All Stars Eddie Stanky playing second and Pee Wee Reese playing shortstop. While not getting a hit he did walk and scored a run. Facing ALMOST universal racial prejudice, Jackie finished his initial season hitting .297 in one hundred and fifty-one games.

I was too young to care much about Jackie Robinson the player and his trials and tribulations. Much later, the old newsreel films I watched incessantly proved him worthy of six all-star appearances and a league MVP award. Today I celebrate the manner in which he revolutionized the game and the trail he blazed for the stars of my own youth and for those who followed. I cannot fathom what baseball might have been like without the likes of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Bob Gibson, Hank Aaron, Ozzie Smith…you get the idea. Today I am also aware of his many trials and tribulations.

When I said almost universal prejudice there were a few opposing players and teammates who came to Robinson’s defense. One who did became one of my all-time favorites as a broadcaster. He was Robinson’s former teammate and Dizzy Dean’s “Little Partner” Pee Wee Reese. Many of my youthful Saturdays were spent sitting with my father watching the CBS Game of the Week with Dizzy and Ree Wee bring the play-by-play. During the trailblazing 1947 season Reese was quoted as saying, “You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of them.” Pretty profound for a white guy from Kentucky in 1947. During the Dodgers first road trip as Robinson was being heckled during pre-game infield, Reese, the captain of the team, went over to Robinson, engaged him in conversation, and put his arm around his shoulder in a gesture of support which silenced the crowd. An eight foot bronze statue located at the Brooklyn Cyclones’ stadium commemorates that moment. A plaque states:

“This monument honors Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese: teammates, friends, and men of courage and conviction. Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, Reese supported him, and together they made history. In May 1947, on Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, Robinson endured racist taunts, jeers, and death threats that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man. Reese, captain of the Brooklyn Dodgers, walked over to his teammate Robinson and stood by his side, silencing the taunts of the crowd. This simple gesture challenged prejudice and created a powerful and enduring friendship.”

Sometimes a bit of kindness and understanding will overcome hate…a lesson we should all learn and attempt to apply.

PERSPECTIVE

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Facing my first baseball season after retirement I began thinking about players I had coached and coached against. This story from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” is about the best player, in my opinion, I ever coached against and a very special baseball team.

“Two, three, the count with nobody on
He hit a high fly into the stand
Rounding third he was headed for home
He was a brown eyed handsome man.
That won the game; he was a brown eyed handsome man”
“Brown-eyed Handsome Man”-Chuck Berry

The 1992 Riverside baseball team began the season hotter than any team I have ever coached and finished the regular season ranked second in the state just behind Belton Honea-Path. With playoff brackets already drawn, everyone circled the second game of the upper state series. Riverside would host Belton in the second round winner’s bracket game if the baseball gods saw fit. Unfortunately, sometimes the baseball gods get a kick out of not allowing things to happen as they are supposed to. In a game we could not have played any better, we lost to eventual state champion Lugoff-Elgin, one to nothing in extra innings. Riverside still got to host Belton but it was in the loser’s bracket. Belton had also gone down to defeat in its respective first round game. I could hear the giggles from above.
Belton was a perennial upper state power we had faced in the playoffs my first year at Riverside. I was almost tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail when I opted to put their best hitter on with the bases loaded, even though it walked in a run. I did this rather than risking a grand slam homerun with the score six to two in our favor in the seventh inning. Six to three sounded a lot better than all tied at six. As I retreated to the safety of our dugout I was serenaded with a chorus of boos, accusations of cowardice and a couple of descriptive terms or phrases questioning my canine parenthood or when exactly I might have been conceived as compared to my parents’ wedding date. The hitter I had walked, Chad Roper, might have been the best high school hitter I had ever seen and in 1990 was just a sophomore. We escaped with a victory although BHP got their revenge later in the playoffs. Roper had the game winning triple in that revenge game and pitched BHP to a two to one victory.
As a senior, Chad stood about six foot one, weighed two hundred pounds and in addition to his ability to hit, had sprinter’s speed. On the mound Chad was also a pro prospect. He truly was the total package. Unfortunately, for him, a freak preseason horse riding injury had limited his innings on the mound. Prior to this 1992 edition of what became a mutually respected, if somewhat one sided rivalry, I had made the decision we were not going to allow Chad to beat us with his bat. We were not going to give him an opportunity to hit anything good. What should have been sound logic turned out not to matter at all. He hit two solo home runs on pitches that were well out of the strike zone. One low and inside pitch was golfed over the left field foul pole, the other pitch thrown up and way away was hit over the trees beyond the left field power alley and into orbit…around Pluto. (I spoke to several of my pitchers from this era and no one will own up to being the guy who gave it up) When I decided to intentionally walk him, he stole second, then third and scored on a ground out. We played well; he played better, eliminating us from the playoffs. We went home for the summer while he went on to win the State AAA title. I guess I should have said BHP went on to win the state championship, but they would not have won it without this rare player.
I have always had mixed feelings when a season has ended. You are sad that you lost your last game, on the one hand, and question yourself on what you did wrong and congratulate yourself on what you did right. On the other hand, you are a little glad because the hard work is over until you realize spring football practice has started so your own work goes on. After the great season we had just completed, I was a little sadder and questioned myself even more about what we could have done differently. As I puttered around the dugout, picking up gear, speaking to parents and waiting for the field to clear, I picked up a box that was supposed to be full of unused game baseballs and found it to be empty. I knew we had not used that many balls. We started with one and one half dozen baseballs and I could account for six we had used. I am not a mathematical genius but calculated quickly twelve baseballs were missing. As I looked around, I found twelve of my players in a huddle around Chad Roper. They were getting him to autograph the baseballs. There was also a lot of joking and laughing taking place between Chad and my team. That brought more than a little clarity to the importance of losing a baseball game. Mad at first, I suddenly found myself smiling as I realized how young people could put the minor bumps in the road into perspective so quickly. As disappointing as losing is, baseball was and still is a game to be played and not a life or death situation. Most of these young men would not play baseball past high school but would be successful in so many ways. My third baseman William Patton comes to mind. He was offered a full scholarship from NASA and it was not to play baseball. He was unable to find Chad’s home run ball either though I understand he sent several unmanned space probes out to try.
Chad was drafted in the second round of the Major League Draft in 1992 by the Minnesota Twins and spent ten seasons kicking around the minor leagues never rising above double A. He seemed to be one of the unlucky ones who were unable to overcome the obstacles life sometimes places in your way. Sometimes success is the biggest hurdle to overcome. I am sure some people would say he was a failure because he never got to the “Big Show.” I believe those people were wrong and narrow minded. Chad got to do something he loved to do for ten years longer than most of us and got paid for doing it. Professional sports are professional sports at any level, and it takes a special talent to get paid to hit or field a baseball wherever you play. How was that a failure? I believe it was pretty special and would have given up a reproductive body part to have had the same opportunity. My biggest regret from that particular day was not getting him to sign my baseball.
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Excerpt from the short story “Be the Rock” contained in “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…”
Strangely, while I was watching the Rose Bowl last night, Christian McCaffrey’s effort’s triggered a thought process that led me on a pathway from wondering who were the best players that I had ever coached or coached against, something that I still haven’t answered, to kids who needed sports more than sports needed them. Everyone enjoyed Christian’s effort, especially Sanford fans, but what about players that don’t have Christian’s skill set? For some reason it brought to mind a young man from Tamassee-Salem who had no skill set but all, a fact that did not prevent him from enjoying the game of baseball or me enjoying him.
Of all of the kids that I have ever coached, I think Justin Chandler epitomizes what it means to be a “rock.” When I say ever, I mean Newberry, Mauldin, Greenville, Landrum, Riverside, Tamassee-Salem, Greer Middle College, Legacy, and Northwest. Damn! That’s a lot of schools and no I did not have a problem keeping a job. Well, just at one. If you listed our forty or so players, varsity, JV and middle school by ability, Justin would rank last. Not because of want to because he had more want to than most. Not because he wasn’t tough, because he was one tough piece of gristle. Justin had to be tough because he suffered from Cerebral Palsy. Justin had two arms but only one of them worked the way it should. The other arm and hand were drawn and a bit withered, while a somewhat immobile elbow joint did not give him the flexibility that allowed him to extend his arm when batting. Add to those afflictions a foot that was slightly turned inward, paining him at every misstep, Tamassee-Salem may have been the only school where he might have played. He gave me another reality check when I realized Justin also epitomized what it meant to PLAY baseball. It is a game that requires you to play and work hard to be successful, but as I sometimes forget, it is a game to be enjoyed or you should not be doing it. Justin enjoyed playing baseball despite his disability and worked hard to overcome it. At times he made it easy to forget he had a disability. When playing JV or middle school ball he twice made plays to save or win games. In one, a line shot was fielded cleanly and after a transfer from glove to throwing hand, which was the same hand, Justin delivered a strike home to retire a sliding runner and preserve a win. In the second game, with the winning runner at third, Justin executed a suicide squeeze bunt to score the winning run. If he wasn’t carried off on his teammate’s shoulders, he should have been.
The complete book, “WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING” BY Don Miller, can be downloaded on Kindle or purchased in paperback using the following link: goo.gl/dO1hcX
Coach Miller’s other two books, “FLOPPY PARTS” AND “PATHWAYS” can also be found at the same link.