A Lot of Strikes, Stares and Misses

I enter the dugout like Mr. Magoo, stumbling over bats and bumping into everyone. By George, there’s a game here somewhere. A playoff game. You can imagine the pressure.

“Over here, girls,” I tell the team. “Everybody over here.”

And the little girls put down their snacks and huddle around me and the other two coaches, 12 talented young players eager to get on with things.

“Everybody feeling good today?” I ask.

Several of them nod.

“Then let’s put our hands in,” I say.

We all join hands for a team yell. This is where it gets serious. This is where you know it’s really the playoffs.

“Let’s win this game,” I say softly, “for the moms.”

“Our moms?” someone asks.

“All the moms,” I say seriously.

The players all look at me. I can tell I struck a chord with this moms thing. Tears well. Several lower lips quiver, especially Coach Bill’s.

“Let’s win it for the moms!” says Coach Lorraine, a mom herself.

It is, perhaps, the most shameless motivational ploy since the Gipper speech. Frankly, I don’t care. Did I mention it’s the playoffs?

*

Second inning:

“Don’t hit any of those bouncy pitches,” I tell the little girl as she gets ready to hit.

“OK, Dad,” she says.

Twice this season, the little girl has singled on pitches that bounced 3 feet in front of the plate, digging the ball out of the dirt as if swinging a sand wedge.

“This time, wait for a good pitch,” I tell her, guiding her gently by the shoulders toward the plate.

I send her from the dugout as if releasing a prize fish back into a stream. Carefully. Slowly. She wriggles from my hands and into the batter’s box.

“Strike one,” the umpire says, and the little girl looks over at me standing in the dugout door, giving me the look that says, “That wasn’t a strike, was it? How could that be a strike. I wasn’t even ready. That was no strike.”

“Strike two!” the umpire says, before she has time to get set again.

“Anything close now,” I tell the little girl, warning her to swing at anything resembling a strike.

“Anything close,” I say again.

The next pitch comes in a little low. About midway to the plate, it rolls a couple of times, then hits a rock and takes a hop, arriving right at the little girl’s ankles. Right where she likes them.

“Nice hit,” I mumble as she dances on first base.

*

Third inning:

“This other team has some real players,” I tell Coach Bill.

“Which team?” he asks.

“The team we’re playing,” I say.

“You don’t say.”

We have these conversations, Coach Bill and I. The subject of the conversation is never clear right away, if ever.

Mostly, they sound like some old Rowan & Martin bit, where stuff is happening all around us, the Sock-It-to-Me Girl is out there dancing and Arte Johnson is falling off his tricycle. Those are the kinds of conversations we have.

“Hey, Caitlin, move to the right a little more!” Bill yells to Caitlin at second base.

“She takes direction well,” I tell Bill.

“Who?” he asks.

“Caitlin,” I tell him.

“What about her?”

Meanwhile, there are unconfirmed reports that one of the other team’s coaches is gazing at our first base coach’s legs. That’d be Coach Lorraine. Plays a lot of tennis. Married to a successful fertility specialist. So you can just imagine.

Nevertheless, several of our mothers are pretty upset by all this leering, which they find rude and out of place, especially since it’s directed at someone besides themselves.

“That one coach,” one of the wives hisses through the chain link dugout, “keeps looking at Lorraine’s legs.”

“She’s got nice legs,” Coach Bill says, as if noticing for the first time.

“The best in baseball,” I say.

“I thought I had the best legs in baseball,” Coach Bill says.

“That was last year,” I tell him. “Things change.”

*

Fourth inning:

Last inning and we need five runs.

“Strike one!” yells the umpire.

The other team is striking out many of our players. One by one, they go down swinging.

“Anybody here Catholic?” one of our players asks. “Anybody?”

I don’t know if she’s looking for someone to pray with, or just curious about our various religious affiliations.

“Strike two!” yells the umpire.

“So I’m the only Catholic?” asks Kathleen, who’s as tiny as a hymnal.

“My dad was Catholic,” I tell her.

“OK,” she says, seemingly relieved.

Despite the tension, our fans in the stands appear to be unnaturally happy, particularly for parents.

There are fits of raucous laughter coming from our stands. A yelp. A scream. Then more laughter.

“What’s going on over there?” someone asks.

“I think they’re drinking happy juice,” Coach Bill says.

“They’re not supposed to be drinking happy juice,” I say.

“I’ll go check it out,” says Coach Lorraine, a stickler for rules.

Occasionally at games like these, you hear reports of happy juice being served. I’ve never seen it, but I don’t doubt it happens. I’m 43. Nothing surprises me anymore.

“Did you warn them?” I ask Coach Lorraine when she returns.

“Yes,” she says.

“And what’d they say?”

“They said I have really nice legs.”

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.