Championship Spells M-e-m-o-r-i-e-s for Little Leaguers

Sitting here thinking of those Yorba Linda boys at the Little League World Series, I recall my lone pre-pubescent brush with greatness. It was a bittersweet Saturday morning in May, set under bright lights in an historic hotel ballroom. If things would just go right, stardom was within reach.

It was 1961, and as a sixth-grader in tiny Marquette, Neb., I had won the Hamilton County spelling championship (you can look it up) earlier that spring. That qualified me for the Midwest Spelling Bee in Omaha, from which the winner advanced to the National Spelling Bee in Washington.

I had been to the Midwest contest the year before, but only because the county winner couldn’t attend and I was runner-up. A photographer from the Omaha newspaper had taken my picture, because he thought I was the youngest participant (almost every county winner was an eighth-grader). Once the contest began, I justified my underdog status by going out in the first written round of 10 words, missing “crass.” Assuming it was a tricky French entry, I outfoxed myself and spelled it c-r-a-s-s-e.

Back the next year at the ripe old age of 11, I considered myself a contender. With my parents and sixth-grade teacher there for moral support, the pressure was immense. After each round of 10 words was announced, proctors roaming the Fontenelle Hotel ballroom would correct the papers, as friends and relatives sat nervously in the gallery. Both groans and sighs of relief were audible as contestants either remained seated or packed up their pencil once the proctor passed.

Round after round went by, and I survived as the field of a few dozen inexorably shrunk. I had had no close calls up to then, but in what turned out to be the final round before the 10 finalists went up on the stage for the oral spelldown that would produce the champion, I flubbed.

The word was “nauseous.” I had a glimmer, but nothing more. I went with n-a-s-e-u-s. You might say I misspelled it and then became it.

Ring me up, back to the bench, see ya later, Charlie.

Say what you will, I was k-a-p-u-t.

Now some 34 years later, what I remember most was the initial horrible feeling that I’d let down my parents and teacher. The walk over to them was torture. They’d driven all that way (120 miles) just to see me lose. My parents thought I could spell anything. And my teacher--what a saint. For weeks before the contest, she had spent night after night, sometimes at school and sometimes at her home, drilling me with words out of the Eaton Blue Back Speller. How could I spell “consanguineous” and miss “nauseous?”

As I got closer to them, I sensed their disappointment. My lower lip started to quiver. Dad had seen that lip action before, and he was quick to the rescue, telling me that I had nothing to be ashamed of. He said it was great I had gotten as far as I did, and that I had two more years to win the contest. As if that weren’t enough, for much of the ride back home, he tried to assuage me by insisting the enunciator had mispronounced the word--that it was “NAW-zee-us,” dammit, and not “naw-shus.”

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When a quick check of the dictionary at home ended the faint hope of lodging a formal protest, there was nothing left but to cope with the letdown. I’m sure that was a sleepless Saturday night.

Which brings me to the doughty lads from Yorba Linda, now in Williamsport, Pa., under the name Yorba Hills All-Stars. No doubt, the boys and their fans are a jittery bunch this week. Not many 12-year-olds get a chance at a once-in-a-lifetime memory. You’re tempted to say it’s too much pressure for any kid, but then you think of the chance to experience that much joy and you want them to go for it.

And when Saturday’s championship game rolls around, and the boys are either in it or out of it, the storytelling can begin.

If the All-Stars lose, some parents will be like my dad and say the umps blew it or the field was tilted. The boys will trudge off the field, some with quivering lips and perhaps feeling like they let down everyone who came across the country to see them. Some may not sleep Saturday night.

That’s OK. It will all fade by Sunday morning. By then, the parents will be telling the boys how great they played and how much fun they created for everyone. By then, everyone who made the trip from Yorba Linda will know they just spent one of the greatest weeks in their lives.

And then they can all share a comforting thought: Sometimes you don’t even have to win to come out way, way ahead.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.