You Should Write a Book…

As the College World Series nears its finale, the writer taps the collective memory of an NCAA baseball team.    (Note…not all of the following stories are mine)

It’s fall 2001 (so, it would be the 2002 season) and I’ve been at school for like 2 weeks when we have our first team meeting in the dugout.  After going through about 35 minutes of material…”And another thing…over the course of a season, I know you guys get frustrated and let fly a swear every once in a while.  But these days, it’s F this, F that…at the dinner table, you people are like ‘Mom, pass the f—ing bread’…Try not to do that out here.”  

As I head into my late twenties, I have drifted away from the video games that once dominated my free time.  Maybe I find these new platforms and their graphics and animations too real.  Maybe I know that if I buy a PS3, I probably will not see the light of day for the next four months.  Maybe I have just outgrown that stage in my life.  Nevertheless, the one game that I can still uncover, play, and become completely immersed by is EA’s MVP NCAA Baseball ’06.  In 2006, EA lost the rights to the MLB Player’s Association, and decided to produce a baseball game anyway.  In the two and a half years I have owned the Xbox version of the game, I have played something like 15 seasons in dynasty mode.

I proudly observed digital walk-on freshmen mature into All-Americans.  I ached for my players slighted by the draft.  I held my breath as senior leaders batted with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning of conference championships.  I cringed when they failed, rejoiced when they valiantly succeeded.  I felt pangs of regret as starting pitchers finished second in the Roger Clemens Award voting, notes of delight as they received the award the following season.  I celebrated as the Big State Fishbones grew from upstart success to undeniable powerhouse.

What made the game work so well had little to do with its special features or impressive game-play.  In fact, the game’s initial weakness became its biggest strength.  MVP NCAA ’06 did not have to pander to specific players.  It did not have to render faces, body types, batting stances, or pitching styles.  Instead, it presented imaginary players with imaginary skills that you learned to appreciate and, in time, consider your own extended family.

You might ask, what does this have to do with anything?  Simply, this game reminded me of my time as a Division III baseball player.  It was a time of joy, camaraderie, and excitement that existed without incredible amounts of fanfare or attention.

I’m in the dugout, watching a freshman struggle through a particularly tough outing.  I think we’re losing by eight or ten.  Coach finally pulls the kid out of the game.  When he gets to the dugout, he throws his glove down in disgust.  To nobody in particular, Coach says, “That was the best throw he made all day.”  

Ask anyone remotely related to baseball in St. Louis about Coach Ric Lessmann, you will receive a knowing look, a nod of understanding, and some incredible story.  Most would describe him as “a character.”  This past season at Washington University in St. Louis was Coach Lessmann’s 44 ^th .  During his years in the junior college system, Lessmann led the Meramec Warriors to an incredible record of 963-318.  Under his guidance, the Warriors made it to the Junior College World Series nine times; winning the tournament in 1974.  Last season, during his fourteenth at WUSTL, he reached the milestone of 1,300 career NCAA wins.  Furthermore, the Washington U Bears, ostensibly a team independent from any conference (the UAA does not grant automatic College World Series Tournament bids to the winner of the conference), won thirty or more games in 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2007; and reached the national tournament in the three straight seasons between 2005-2007.

After a long winter of watching batting practice and hitting fungos, it is finally the first game of the 2002 season, my first at Wash U.  Coach gathers us on the intramural field for a pregame pep talk.  Keep in mind that I still didn’t know coach very well.   “You know, I’m not the kind of coach that gives pep talks.  Huh, I mean, you don’t need a pep talk to play baseball the right way.  But I will say this much.  There is one thing that will decide this entire season.  It will be the difference between a great season and a terrible one.  The key…the key…THE KEY to this season is gonna be this—mark my words—pop- fly defense.”  Pure genius. 

When you watch the College World Series on ESPN, you see highly manicured fields surrounded by stadiums filled with big screens, advertising billboards, impressive scoreboards, and capacity crowds.  My experience between the years of 2001-2005 differed slightly.  To start, my fellow teammates and I were the grounds crew.  After most practices, we would roll the tarp onto the field, knowing that any rain might spell the end of a weekend of double headers.  After a heavy rain fall, water seeped under the tarp.  We became experts in the use of Diamond Dry, the practice of raking through topsoil to unearth the dry earth below the surface, the laying of baselines, and the exercise of dragging the field.  We learned to recognize weather patterns.  In late February, removing the tarp from the field could last hours.  We wrestled with water weight, ice, wind, mud, and the elements.  Sometimes, I would return to my dorm room more physically spent by an afternoon with the tarp than a practice dedicated to running.

Once, after a devastating storm late in the season blew the tarp off the field on a Thursday prior to a weekend that could make or break our tournament hopes, my teammates and I gathered on the field late Thursday evening.  No amount of Diamond Dry would make this field playable in twelve hours.  Our rakes and tamps were useless.  Despair crept through our psyches.  We were going to miss the postseason, not because of anything we had accomplished on the field, but because the weather had conspired against us.  Not a chance, we would not let that happen.  Ultimately, the games of the weekend were played without any influence from the weather.  No one but the Wash U Bears knew that we had used gasoline and matches to burn the offending puddles from our environment.

Junior year, I believe (2002).  Coach wobbles to the mound as I’m pitching, sticks out his hand and says, “Kiss my ass, Damien.” 

I then proceed to walk off the mound to the bench.

Besides our scheduled opponents, we contended with the weather patterns of the Midwest, a schedule that packed as many games as possible between late February and mid-May, and the sentimentalities of a university bent on cracking the top ten U.S. News & World Report rankings.  When I, accompanied by my father, first met Coach as an interested recruit, he bemoaned the situation he faced at Washington University: while other universities afforded their coaches slots, with which coaches could sneak athletes with lower test scores and grades through the admissions process, he had none.  Players had to get into the school on their own accord, even though he would love to have them.  It was an oddly honest conscription pitch.

For the four years I spent around him, Coach always had an incoming catcher that was 6’2” and could “hit the ball a country mile.”  This catcher had a 4.0 GPA and a 1600 on his SATs.  He had been waitlisted.  Apparently, year after year, this poor guy with immaculate scores, academics, and physical gifts, kept applying and kept ending up waitlisted.  Come to think of it, we never actually met the guy.

One of my favorites: watching a freshman who was trying out struggle in the cage, and asking coach what he thought of him…and him replying, “Huh…he’s a CP” then walking away.   I chased him down, and asked him “What’s a CP?”  

“Huh….Can’t Play.”   I still use this abbreviation when watching tryouts for my teams, it’s easy to write and if the kids see your tryout list they won’t freak out.  

When people ask if I was part of a fraternity in college, I respond, “Nah, I was on the baseball team.”  There was no closer brotherhood on campus.  Throughout the years, we shared stories and events that no one else could understand.  From trips to rural Illinois to nights spent BS-ing around a TV and some beers, if you were one of the thirty or so people on the team, you immediately became so much more than a teammate.  You became an ally, a friend, a family member, who was instantly included in the jokes and stories that were passed down from team to team.  From nights at a local dive-bar to Passover Seders, if there was one ballplayer on the premises, chances were good that there were more around somewhere. 

It’s freshman year, and I have pitched into the fifth inning.  We’re winning by something like ten runs, and there’s an error in the field and I walk the next guy.  Out comes coach.  He says, “You should write a book: How To Pitch Yourself Out of the Rotation.” 

Over the course of my four years with this extended family, I experienced the extreme range of sports emotions and experiences.  As a freshman, I became a starting pitcher on a team that broke a school record for wins.  Then, I was crushed when that record didn’t translate into an at-large bid.  At some point during my sophomore year, I hurt my shoulder.  I pitched early into my junior year.  When I was finally removed from my last game, I could no longer lift my hand above my shoulder.  I have experienced very little in my life that hurt more than the knowledge I would never play competitive baseball again.  I felt that I had let down the coaching staff that recruited me, and more importantly, I felt that I had failed these newfound family members.  Destroyed does not even begin to cover the depths of these feelings.  For almost ten years, there had not been a fall, winter, or spring where I was not playing or training for a baseball season.  I now had two years left at college without that piece of my life.  What was I going to do for those two years?

To this day, I will never know if Coach and the rest of the team sensed my desperation, but they allowed me to stay around.  I helped where I could.  I hit thousands of fungos throughout those two seasons.  When younger pitchers asked for advice, I offered mine.  When Coach’s voice became too negative, I contributed only positive reminders.  More importantly, I was still part of the team.  In looking back, I have come to a startling realization: though I have won various awards and been a part of teams that won a State Championship, there is no time in my life that I relished more than my last two years on the Washington University baseball field.

Ultimately, as I look back upon my time in St. Louis, I savor those final two years.  That was Division III baseball: family, camaraderie, a character for a coach, a closeness that bound everyone who wore the uniform, and—to paraphrase Field of Dreams —memories so thick that you have to brush them away from your face.

My freshman season (spring of 2000), coach showed up late to practice, which is totally unlike him.  Turns out, there had been a big thunderstorm near his home the night before, and his house had been struck by lightning.  A few of us had gathered round to hear the story, and it went something like this:

“I heard a loud crash, so I jumped out of bed and ran towards my daughter’s room.  When I opened the door, it was just, it was just…raining on my head.  I mean, I was just looking up at the open sky.  It’s a good thing my daughter wasn’t there, ’cause there was a tree laying in her bed.”  He went on to explain, “I didn’t realize the house had been struck by lightning until morning when I went down to the kitchen to find out that all my appliances were blown out.  My microwave…zapped.  My stove…fried.  My toaster… toast.”  

*A most deserved thanks to all my teammates that contributed stories for this column.