The view from the dugout

Oct. 20, 2005

Dear Leslie,

One summer when I lived near San Francisco, the local youth baseball league was looking for managers. Having spent my 10th through 18th years playing baseball in the summer, I figured managing a team of 13- and 14-year-olds couldn't be that hard.

At the end of the first practice, a co-worker I drafted as a coach began a blistering description of the team's hopeless ineptitude as baseball players and human beings. Al "Casey" Ashby, my baseball coach at that age, never would have said such things. He encouraged, never berated. Soon I was managing alone.

You think it's going to be all about strategy. One of my primary responsibilities was to chauffeur players who wouldn't be able to get to the games otherwise. Another important duty was explaining to players why they can't all pitch.

The most fun I had was giving signs.

With one exception, the Expos were composed of so-so baseball players much like I was at that age. But they loved baseball. Each game they taught me never to underestimate what that love could do.

Gerardo, a feisty kid who liked to hang from the dugout fence when we were at bat, played centerfield. One time our pitcher picked off a runner when Gerardo snuck up behind second base. I was as surprised as anyone. I hadn't taught them how to do that.

Our star, J.B., played shortstop and pitched. He was a natural athlete. If he reached third base, he stole home. He was unstoppable.

As a team we weren't very good or, I confess, very well-coached. But we made the playoffs because we never gave up. Eight runs down? We came back.

When we were losing, I could feel the players looking at me for a signs of discouragement. Not from me. Casey was waiting for a pioneering heart transplant when he died.

An old girlfriend said the thing she liked about me is that I don't give up. Sure enough, she left me.

I thought about my team Monday night when the St. Louis Cardinals began the ninth inning of their playoff game with the Houston Astros. Everything was stacked against the Cardinals. They were losing 4-2. They were up against one of the best relief pitchers in baseball. And the Astros fans were screaming deliriously, three outs from seeing their team advance to the World Series for the first time in their history.

Would the Cardinals give up? The first two batters made outs. The Cardinals were one out from their season ending. The Astros fans yelled ever louder if that's possible. Then David Eckstein, a Gerardo all grown up, eked out a base hit. Then home run hitter Jim Edmonds accepted a humble base on balls instead of trying to tie the game with one swing.

You may know the rest. The Cardinals' great slugger, Albert Pujols, knocked a prodigious game-winning homer. Suddenly the only sound was the silence of 50,000 Astros baseball fans' hearts breaking. Most of Missouri was screaming now.

The Expos had a pizza party after the season was over. Each one received a trophy to remember the season by. Jose and Manny and Ronnie and Bernard and Clint and Billy and Baldomera and Kenneth and Greg and Jeff and Richard and Gerardo and J.B. gave me a signed baseball that resides on my bookcase.

They would be nearing 30 years old now and, I hope, still never giving up.

Love,

Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.