A Great Defeat And A Small Triumph

Let's start today's blog off with a brief history lesson.

In the summer of 2007, the Colonie Little League 10 year old All-Stars took the postseason by storm. They went undefeated through District 13, then through Section 2, and finally, they won the New York State Championship without suffering a single loss. The following year, 2008, the same group of kids now comprised the 11 year old All-Stars. There was some speculation as to whether or not they would be able to recapture the state championship; after all, winning back-to-back state championships is a feat that doesn't happen often, and usually, winning a championship in the first place involves some degree of luck. But, when all was said and done, the 2008 11 year olds did exactly what they did the year before: they went undefeated through the state tournament to take the championship for the second consecutive year. As it turned out, they were just that good. The 2009 season was rife with anticipation for what was to come during the All-Star season, because, as you may know, the 12 year old year of Little League is when it really counts and you can finally advance past the state tournament, into the regionals, and ultimately to the World Series. Having won the state championship for two years running with a record of 21-0, it was basically expected that this team, which had twice proven itself to be the best New York State had to offer, would once again capture the state title and go on to the regionals in Bristol, CT. There, they would play teams representing the other states in the Mid-Atlantic region, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., for a chance to compete in the World Series in Williamsport, PA. No team in recent history had a better chance of making it to Williamsport than the 2009 12 year old All-Stars, and after the roster was posted in June, things were shaping up very nicely.

July 6th, 2009, The Crack Heard Round The World: Nick Donato, the 12 year olds' most dominant pitcher, hitter, and all-around star player, was pitching in the City-County semi-final for Vellano Brothers, the Colonie Little League regular season champions. On his third pitch, there was an audible cracking noise, and he fell to the ground. After the wild rumors were done circulating, I heard what happened straight from the source. A spiral fracture, which had started roughly a year before and had gone unnoticed for that duration, had finally opened up, and split his humerus clean in two. He would be unable to play ball for three months, and the All-Star season started in just one week. Basically, at that point, everyone's dreams of going to the World Series were crushed. Sure, a team that good doesn't achieve what they had on the merits of one player alone, and they hadn't; they truly were a great team. But when you take the best player right off the top, you're crippled. They did dominate the district tournament, and went undefeated all the way to the sectional championship, but they lost that game, the first loss they had ever incurred, and their amazing journey was finally over.

I can say with confidence that with Nick on the team, they would not have lost that sectional championship. The team that ended up winning the state, South Shore Little League from Staten Island, would have given them a run for their money, and it would have been a very tough game, but they would not have been an insurmountable challenge. And had they won the state, there is no doubt in my mind that they'd be playing in Williamsport now, because I watched the regional tournament, and the teams that South Shore played there were nothing really special; our 12s would have beaten them with relative ease. All of that, however, was wiped away with one broken arm, the greatest tragedy I've witnessed in my 18 year involvement with Colonie Little League.

Where am I going with all this, you ask? To Williamsport, naturally, which is where I spent this past weekend with this very group of kids (and the rest of the 12 year olds who played for Colonie this year). Going to the Little League World Series was an amazing experience, but at the same time, a bittersweet one. For a time, while watching the South Shore team that represented not only New York but the Mid-Atlantic region, I couldn't shake the feeling that that should be our team down there on the field. Those should be our families cheering for them. Those should be our kids signing autographs for other star struck Little Leaguers and being treated like Major League Baseball players. Angelo Navetta shouldn't have been the most sought-out autograph from the New York team, it should have been Nick Donato. And when Chris pointed out how cool it would be to see Nick as a World Series celebrity, I couldn't stop thinking about that either. I was watching the star players from the World Series teams, and how they acted when they were approached by other kids for autographs. They were quiet, aloof, unenthusiastic, almost like they were sick of signing autographs, like they had already gotten used to the fame and adoration they were receiving. In a word, they came off as arrogant. Now, Nick Donato is a character, that's for sure, but he's the same character everywhere he goes. It's kind of hard to describe, and you really have to know him, but he would have been a ton of fun to be around at the World Series if he had been on one of the teams playing in it. On the field, he's all business, but off the field, he's a total goof, and he would have made the most of that whole scene without being arrogant, because that is one thing he is not and has never been. I think, if for no other reason than the way he carries himself, he deserved that kind of status more than any of these other kids.

On the other hand, while it was a crushing blow to watch players from another team get to do what our team should have been doing, I did take some consolation in the fact that if they were playing, I wouldn't get to experience the World Series with them. And yes, they were a great team, but they're also a really great group of kids too. Part of what made the World Series experience so amazing was getting to spend that whole weekend with these kids. For the most part, they weren't even fazed by the fact that there was another team playing in their place; it seemed like it bothered me more than it bothered them, and I respect them for being able to take it all in stride. Although, as an aside, I was remarking to Chris that every time one of them saw a member of the South Shore team, they should have said "Nick broke his arm. You're welcome."

Another really cool aspect of the weekend was the exhibition game at Original Field, the Birthplace of Little League. If you know me, or if you've been paying attention to anything you've been reading for the last few paragraphs, then you know how much I love Little League Baseball, so to get to go see the very field on which it was first played, and see some of the guys who played on the very first World Series championship team, was just incredible. All the 12 year olds on the trip (24, to be exact, which included kids who weren't on the 12 year old All-Stars) played a 3 inning exhibition game on the field, and during this game, I got to announce for half an inning. I was the first full-time Voice of Colonie Little League, from 2003-2004, so to be able to announce at Original Field was a tremendous honor (Chris, as the current Voice of Colonie Little League, announced the other two and a half innings while I ran around taking pictures and video).

Another thing that amazed me was the sleeper hit activity of the weekend: Mao. In case you're unfamiliar, Mao is a card game (named after the Chinese dictator) in which the rules are not told, only enforced through penalties doled out by the Mao Master, so you have to figure them out as you play, basically by trial and error. It's unbelievably frustrating when you first start playing, but once you figure out the game, it's a great deal of fun. After we were done playing poker for M&Ms, I suggested on a whim that we play Mao, figuring that these antsy 12 year old kids amped up on a sugar high wouldn't have the attention span to sit through one game before they got sick of it and left for something less ambiguous and more frantic. I was surprised when they not only sat through the first game, but kept insisting on playing until they learned all the rules. And THEN, they kept wanting to play it at virtually every free moment back at the campground for the rest of the trip. They demonstrated a shocking degree of patience and self-control, which is odd, considering the fact that most college age individuals I've played with don't conduct themselves the way these kids did. In fact, the only time I ever played Mao with people my age in the capital region, most of them quit angrily after Chris figured out what was going on and they didn't. So I have to give props to the Colonie 12s for their keen observations, (mostly) cool heads, and the overall astute manner in which they played.

On a more personal level, I think this past weekend was just what I needed; circumstances haven't come to pass the way I would have liked in recent history, and I figured a few days away from home would take my mind off things. They did, and then some. The first day, when all we did was arrive at the campground, go swimming, eat dinner and then hang out a little before bed, I spent most of the night trying to convince myself that I was having a good time. Granted, I was having a good time, especially during those two crazy games of Pooltimate Frisbee, but I was preoccupied with trying to shake the feeling that I should be in Lynchburg. On day two, that all changed. I didn't need to shake it anymore, because I became completely absorbed in the World Series. As I said before, I love baseball, and Little League is my favorite form of baseball, so having the opportunity to watch the 16 best Little League teams in the world play against each other was a great treat. I could have done it for hours on end, and in fact, I did. When one game ended, another began, and for two days, we went back and forth between Volunteer Stadium and Lamade Stadium watching the teams face off against each other, and it never got old. The night games in particular were filled with an incredible energy, electrifying the atmosphere. My favorite spot from which to watch the games was basically anywhere behind the outfield fence at Lamade, the main field. Whenever a player hit a home run, there was a mad rush to get the ball, as those World Series balls become prized souvenirs for anyone fortunate enough to get their hands on one (alas, I didn't). I did, however, have a brief stint on ESPN during a commercial break, along with my cohorts (including Chris and Nick) as the crane camera took a shot of us behind the right field fence at Lamade during the Georgia/New York game on Saturday afternoon. We spent basically all of Friday and Saturday at the Little League Complex, and after our time was done, I didn't want to leave. I was enjoying the experience so much that I would have stayed out the week to watch the rest of the series if I could have.

So to recap: the trip spanned four days, Thursday-Sunday, with the meat of the adventures occurring at the Little League Complex on Friday and Saturday. We had two awesome, non-stop days filled with nothing but baseball, and I haven't had such a great time all summer. Now obviously, the primary reason for the immense amount of enjoyment I got out of this trip was that it was structured around one of my favorite pastimes, but there was another reason for its greatness that I didn't realize until the second day we were there: there were no women on the trip whatsoever. None. There were 30 some odd kids, probably a little more than half that many adults, and not a one of them was female. This hit me like a glorious epiphany from the heavens as I was coming out of the shower at the start of day 2. A self-sufficient group of men planned a four day trip, made the journey, supplied themselves with food (this includes cooking, for the record), cleaned up after themselves, made sure they were at the right places at the right times, and had an awesome time doing it. There was no complaining, no nagging, no excess worrying, no lapses in rationality, no impractical uses of time, no whining, and, most importantly (and this also sums up everything I've just listed), no distractions from our purpose for being there. The trip had a few extremely minor hitches - some kids failed to check in with their chaperones at times, and one kid got briefly sick - but other than that, it was a wild success. It was, as we realized, the ultimate Manventure; in fact, it was a Manventure of such epic proportions that it was dubbed a Pilgrimange. I've long said that women are the cause of all the world's problems, and this trip, which had no noteworthy problems, is just more evidence to further that theory.

And look, it even restored my convictions and got me railing against women again. If that's not a great trip, I don't know what is.