The adventures of a Florida boy (part 10)
In the 1960s, kids ran as far and wild as their imaginations would take them
ONE OF AN OCCASIONAL SERIES: My boyhood was spent in Florida in the 1960s on an island called Coquina Key. My parents’ waterfront home overlooked a large expanse of Tampa Bay. Back then, parts of the island were undeveloped, which left plenty of room for climbing trees, digging forts in the sand, and swimming in shark-infested waters (though we didn’t give the latter much thought).
This is part 10 of a random and mostly light-hearted series that I might eventually combine into a memoir. I’m telling these stories to the best of my recollection and changing names and physical descriptions just because it seems like the right thing to do.
Catch of a lifetime
Some of the best memories of my boyhood came from a three-year period when I played Little League baseball. Though I was strong for my size, I was unusually skinny and not built for high school sports. But between the ages of 10 and 12, I played in Little League and was pretty good. In my final year, I was probably one of the five best players on the team. I couldn’t hit for power, but I could drill line-drive singles to keep an inning alive. I was also a solid left-fielder.
If you’ve read any of my past episodes, you’ve probably noticed there has been little mention of my family. I was raised by my mom and stepdad and have one sister. But she is four years older than me, so we rarely hung out together back when I was a kid.
My mom was a gentle person, but my stepdad had quite the temper. He wasn’t the physical type. It was more just yelling. And to be honest, both my parents drank a lot, which led to terrible late-night arguments that were scary to a young kid. And so, my boyhood in Florida wasn’t entirely idyllic. Many people had it worse, some had it better.
I only bring this up now to add some context to this story. My parents were not involved much in my life outside of the house. For instance, the Little League complex where I played all my games was about seven miles away. And most of the time, I got back and forth to games and practices on my bike, often returning home in the dark. Nowadays, most parents couldn’t imagine allowing a 10-year-old boy to ride seven miles in the dark by himself. But back then, it was a common practice in a lot of households.
My parents rarely attended my games — maybe once or twice, all told. And my stepdad was not the volunteer-to-be-coach kind of parent. He was more of a cocktail party kind of guy.
When I was 12 and in my final year in Little League, the coach of my team was a volunteer-to-be-coach kind of parent. Two of his sons played for our team, and they also happened to be our two best players. But he was a father figure to all of us — kind, patient, and fun to be around. He always encouraged. He never yelled. We weren’t the best team. But he was the best coach.
One day after a practice, when everyone had left except for Coach, his sons, and me, he volunteered to give me a little one-on-one instruction. The field we played on was also used by older teens, so the outfield fences were about 320 feet from home plate as opposed to a typical Little League field where the fences were more like 200 feet. Because of this, I was able to go way out in centerfield. Coach started hitting some high fly balls that came my way a lot farther and faster than a 12-year-old could ever hit one. At first, I struggled. But Coach kept at it, and within 30 minutes I was catching most of them. After about an hour, we finally called it quits. But in that relatively short time, my confidence as an outfielder took a giant leap.
The next evening, our team played the best team in the league led by a terrific home run hitter who was already muscular at age 12. Surprisingly, we entered the bottom of the ninth inning ahead by one run. There was one out, but they had a runner on first base. And up to the plate came the superstar. The odds weren’t in our favor.
On the first pitch, the larger-than-life boy cranked a stupendous blast to deep leftfield. In the first fraction of a second I stepped in the wrong direction, but then my new muscle-memory — honed from my practice session with the coach — kicked in, and I turned and chased after the towering drive. Knowing how good the hitter was, I was already playing deep. But this blast was titanic, not long enough to clear the fence but damn close to it. Plus, it was moving like a blistering bullet. With all my strength and speed, I ran and then leaped, extending my glove as high in the air as possible. Somehow, I caught the ball.
The small crowd watching the game roared. And amid the hoopla, I heard my coach yell, “Great catch, son!”
The runner who had been on first base was already rounding third, convinced there was no way the skinny leftfielder could run that ball down. He was forced to turn and begin the long race back to first. I had a good arm for a kid my size, but I was about 250 feet from first base. I also had a bad habit of occasionally throwing the ball too high. I turned toward first and heaved the ball as hard as I could. And though the throw had the distance, it leaped toward the heavens like a rocket. (I still remember seeing the people in the bleachers looking up at the ball and watching it descend as if they were observing a meteorite fall from the sky.)
As the ball spun toward Earth, the boy rounded second and rushed toward first base in a desperate attempt to avoid a game-ending double play. Our first baseman — one of the coach’s two sons — waited with glove held high.
Amazingly, the ball dropped into his glove as softly as a fluttering leaf, beating the runner by three steps.
Double play.
Game over.
Victory!
For such a small gathering, there was an explosion of cheers. My teammates and I jumped around like we had won the World Series.
For a day, at least, I was a hero.
Great catch, son!
Thanks, Coach. For everything.
The adventures of a Florida boy — past episodes
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
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Do You Believe in Magic? is book 1 of my new teen fantasy series titled Dark Circles. I have finished the first draft and am in the revision process of book 2 (Do You Believe in Monsters?). I plan to release book 2 in October of this year. Then I’ll jump right in to book 3. To learn more, please visit my author’s website.
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Thank you, Daniel. You are one of the best on all of Substack.
It's impossible to overrate the importance of a good mentor.