Swagger of the girls of spring

Here we are again in shallow right field, planting the seeds of hope, accomplishment and satire for an entire softball season to come, fixing bad swings and correcting unsteady smiles. The suburbs, they can be a lot of work, you know.

“Elbows up, girls,” I say over and over again. “Elbows waaaaaay up.”

Change comes hard to the aggressive children of successful parents. Willful. Confident. Frighteningly verbal. Eager listeners too -- if only to one another. Why change anything when life has been so good already? Right away, I sense we have our work cut out for us.

“Butt down,” I say. “On grounders, you’ve got to get your fannies down.”

We are in the early stages of a relationship, the team and I, and the girls still aren’t sure whether I really know anything more than a few simple commands. “Who is this guy?” they wonder among themselves. “Is it really legal to say butt in public?”

So they turn their freckles to the sun. Smile a little. Get their butts down and their elbows up. You know, just in case we’re right about something.

“Peyton, get that elbow up,” I say again.

“OK, coach,” she says.

I’m a coach of unusual specifications. Athletically gifted. Mentally large. Like most men, I’m prone to machine-gun bursts of advice, then long, mournful periods of silence. What more could you ask of a coach? Even Lombardi shut up once in a while.

“Kate?” I say.

“What, coach?”

“How many hands do you have?”

“Two.”

“Well, use ‘em both,” I say.

“OK, coach,” she says, smiling.

We refuse to coddle them, these 12- and 13-year-old daughters of suburban America. They come to us pre-coddled, many of them. We’ll teach them, praise them and tease them into shape. But we won’t coddle. Too much coddling can ruin a kid.

And so far, such toughness is proving valuable. At the very first batting practice, I caught a whiffle ball in my tender, underutilized reproductive region. In a way, it was a relief, since each season I sustain some career-threatening injury, and it’s always good to take your lumps early.

Last year, for example, I bumped an elbow on a dugout post and had to drink left-handed for a week. Do you have any idea how much weight you can lose when you have to eat and drink with your opposite hand? Well, not enough. But some.

“What do you want me to work on now?” asks Steve, my dedicated coaching colleague.

“My taxes?”

“How about stealing?” he says.

“Same thing,” I say.

The girls love to practice stealing. Second base. Home. They don’t care.

How deliciously subversive stealing is. How honest and upfront. When you steal a base, you go in feet first and with a clear conscience. How many fun things can you say that about anymore?

“Good slide, Anna,” I say.

“Thanks, coach.”

“Next!” I yell.

“Me?” Jessica asks.

“Why not,” I say.

The annual player draft went well, with nary a complaint. It just goes to show what well-meaning people can accomplish when they set aside their personal agendas for the good of the group. For a week after, there were a few scattered shootings. A house was torched. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Why do I keep doing this?” I ask my buddy Paul.

“Because you’re a junkie,” he says.

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“You’re mainlining misery,” he explains.

Such is the price of strong leadership. Churchill wasn’t always beloved. And they eventually shot Lincoln, of course. Little League is politics without decorum. The stakes, evidently, far higher.

But the results, so far, have been splendid. All the teams in our league appear to have chemistry, charisma and the sort of brash, ponytailed swagger you love to see in young ballclubs. They scurry around the bases as if they eat nothing but semisweet baker’s chocolate. Hair in their eyes? Doesn’t matter.

“Dad, what time is it?” the little girl asks.

“2:05,” I say.

“2:05 or 2:07?” she asks.

“Why?”

“Because sometimes you round down,” she says.

“2:15,” I say.

Yep, sometimes we round down, just to get in a few more minutes of infield practice. In this town, actresses shave years off their ages and coaches round down. Nobody really seems to mind. We’re just trying to squeeze a few more minutes out of our short careers.

Because Sofia looks to have a very promising swing, serious as Oedipus. Erin can make the throw all the way from third, triggering memories of Santo. Lynn? Quick as a bumblebee.

“You look good, coach,” one of the fathers says.

“You exaggerate,” I say.

“No,” he says. “You look good.”

Such is spring, a season of exaggeration and fresh starts. When everyone is undefeated and the damp grass smells like lunch.

Spring. Renewal. Hope. Desperation.

Butts down, girls. Elbows up.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.