League championship game, 1960, Tacoma Little League Babe Ruth . . .
My team, the Pythias Giants (I’m being dead serious) against the League powerhouse Cheney Lumberjacks. I was pitching for Pythias and Don Carlson for Cheney.
I pitched a hell of a game. Gave up a run in the 5th inning and another in the 7th, both on broken bat hits, dying quails we used to call them, those agonizing little floaters that just make it to the outfield, out of reach of an infielder’s glove. Cheney managed a grand total of three hits off of me. I struck out twelve, my nasty knuckleball dancing like a ballerina.
We lost 2-0!
Don Carlson no-hit us!
I was totally dejected riding home with my dad who, to his credit, allowed me to wallow in self-pity for a full ten minutes before he had had enough.
“Bill,” he said. “There is always going to be someone better than you. That’s a fact of life there is no escaping. So that leaves you two choices, or so it seems to me. You can either work your butt off to get better, knowing you’ll never be the best but still able to play the game you love, or you can take that glove of yours down to Goodwill and let some underprivileged kid use it. Let me know now, though, before we get home, so I can swing you by Goodwill if that’s your decision.”
Those words are still with me fifty-eight years later, and they apply to so many of my pursuits in life. I am never going to be the best writer, but I can become a pretty damned good writer. The best husband? Father? Friend?
Where’s that old glove of mine? I need to practice some more.
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 