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July 7, 2005
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July 7, 2005 |
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sports
T-ballers create a dusty magic Zenya Hoff-Miyazaki, he’s 3, wins one of Perry League’s “Top Two Most Dusty, Most-Dirt-Covered, Most-Caked Child” awards this week. And oh, boy! What a week! With 50 kids on the diamond, 50 kids running and kicking and plowing through the very fine, very soft powdery dirt of the Gaunt Park ball diamonds, we stirred up a storm. At one point it was pure magic, the lot of us, 50 kids and 15 to 20 adults, shuffling in the dirt, lifting a radiant, burnt-butter, yellowish-brown cloud of dust, that rose five feet over our heads and extended all the way into the grass of the outfield. It was pure Perry League magic. “When we got Zenya into the tub,” Kurt Miyazaki tells me at The Emporium the next morning, “there was so much dirt, the water looked like tea!” “You were really caked,” I say to Zenya, who is suddenly alive and moving. “He was even putting it down his shirt,” Kurt says miming his son, lifting a huge, imaginary handful of dust to his collar. Zenya’s nodding, his dark eyes shining as he bounces about the store, displaying his mighty talents, becoming for us the Ninja warrior superstar, kick boxing, dancing, twirling, acrobat boy that he is. “Did you put dirt down the front of your shirt?” I ask, forgetting how difficult it often is for a toddler or preschooler to field a question from an adult. Zenya looks at me, then past me, then back at me again. His deep brown eyes are luminous. “OK, I’ll do that,” he says. OK, his dad and I say, “OK.” Nathan Bales, who’s 4, is simply sensational in the dust. He rushes to every ground ball coming his way and manages to fall down or throw himself down, into a slide or a bouncing, bumping tumble, for each and every ball, driving a wonderful two-to-three inch pile of dust before him each time. “Nice catch! Nice job!” we yell and the boy lights up, growing larger, taller and standing a bit straighter, soaking up our praise. The children love it, our praise, our attention, our taking them seriously, our caring about them individually, they love it and respond immediately; and when we do it, when we notice and attend, when we praise and celebrate them and their accomplishments, it elevates our spirits, it enriches our souls, making us, honest to goodness, better human beings. And that’s a fact. Try it yourself and see. Sequoia Ronnie-Dyer, 9, is very cool, very beautiful and very smart. She’s delighted and bemused by the silliness of our calisthenics. We’ll do squats, for example, dropping into a squat on a the count of one, come back up and put our hands on our hips on the count of two, and then shoot our hands out and away from us, becoming human airplanes, at the same time making a weird, lip-flapping, spit-flying “Brrllhhhhhlllhh!” sound. Sequoia stands at the back of the pack, shaking her head, wondering where have all our marbles gone. But she’s a good ballplayer, hitting a home run and then flying round the bases like she had wings on her feet. Hayden Quigley, “3,” his mom says, just smashes the ball off the tee — smashes and bashes it, slaughtering it, putting that ball out of its misery. Then he’ll race round the bases and come right back to bat again. The boy just loves to bat, loving the bat itself as much as he loves swinging it, loving it almost as much as Tony Marinelli, 6, a boy so handsome there ought to be a law against it. Tony hit the ball about 400 times Friday night, coming to bat as often as was humanly possible, never ever never wanting to relinquish that bat. “I like to hold the bat,” he says when he comes home to score his 400th run, immediately picking up the bat of his choice. Meanwhile Hayden’s wielding his bat. “Look out!” his mom, Rachel, says just as Beth Trent steps in protecting both Hayden and any of his potential victims. “We’re just trying to keep his teeth in until we find a good dentist,” Rachel says about her bat wielding WildChild, cracking me up. Hayden, like so many of our t-ball darlings, is a miracle of kinetic energy, a sky rocket going off, a hose turned on full blast. Like little 2-year-old Natalie Galarza. “She’d rather just jump,” her mom Kathleen says. Natalie’s leaping from the top of the bleachers. (They’re only three rows high, so it’s not too dangerous.) Sydney Trent, 2, the other winner of the “Top Two Most-Dusty, Most-Dirt-Covered, Most-Caked Child” award this week, spies Natalie climbing the bleachers and abandons me — she and I had been building mounds of dirt along the third base line. “I’m making a cake,” she told me just before she left me (breaking my heart, boo hoo) to join Natalie. But that’s the Perry League, Yellow Springs t-ball program for girls and boys ages 2–9. We welcome every child who wants to play regardless of race, color or creed. We’re out there on the Gaunt Park ball diamonds every Friday night, 6:30– 8. Children can begin playing at any time and there’s no requirement to play every week. So why don’t you come on down and give us a whirl? We’d love to have ya. Bulldogs end season 8–8 Monday night at Oakwood High School was a special one for the Bulldogs. A 30-minute lightning delay, rain and threatening clouds couldn’t stop this magical evening. All 17 players made it into the game and each made an important contribution to an astounding 16–3 victory over the Patterson Park Wildcats. The Bulldog offense was on fire, scoring in every inning led by a 5-run 1st inning and topped by a 6-run 5th on 16 hits. In 4 innings, starting pitcher Lucas Donnell faced only 15 batters and gave up only 2 hits and 1 unearned run. Jerimiha Stubblefield, Anthony Pettiford and Conor Stratton each scored 3 runs on 7 hits and 10 stolen bases. Asa Casenheiser hammered a triple at the top of the fifth inning. Other key hits came from Brandon Semler and Jamie Kitzmiller. Rain forced the cancellation of the team’s last home game on Thursday, giving the team the opportunity to go into the tournament well-rested. The Bulldogs’ first tournament game was against a strong Patterson Park team which the team had never faced at Howell Field, a professional level field in Dayton. The umpires were ready to call the game for poor field conditions but the coaches worked hard to get it in shape and the game started an hour behind schedule. This was not the Bulldogs night, as a high mound never allowed their pitchers to find their groove. Patterson Park scored 10 in the first two innings and the Bulldogs were kept scoreless until Stratton, Andrew Ferguson and Alexis Onfroy-Curley scored in the fourth. The game ended with a 13–3 run-rule victory for Patterson Park. Saturday at 3 p.m. the Bulldogs faced Pinewood 1 at Rohrer Park in a battle to remain in the tournament. Ethan Brown pitched a complete game, allowing only 3 runs on 4 hits and 6 strikeouts. Bulldog bats were strong, led by Jack Daily with a single and double driving in 3 runs. Pettiford started a great day of hitting with a 2-run double in the third. The game ended early with a 12–3 run rule victory for the Bulldogs. Even the early ending didn’t give the team much time to rest for its 5:30 game with Cedarville on the same field. This was a team the Bulldogs were motivated to beat after two previous close losses. The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 2-run lead on an RBI double from Daily that scored Stubblefield. Daily continued an amazing hitting streak with another double and single in the game. Pettiford continued his hitting streak with 3 singles. The Bulldog offense remained strong, scoring in almost every inning. Bulldog pitching was strong with starter Daily, reliever Ferguson and closer Brown. The final score in this hard-fought victory was Bulldogs 10, Cedarville 6. This win kept the Bulldogs in the tournament but sent them to their third game in six hours at the dreaded Howell Field versus the dreaded Tipp City Redhawks who had run-ruled them on two previous occasions. All of this combined for a 16–-5 defeat of the Bulldogs and their elimination from the tournament. The highlight of the game was a fifth-inning rally with Stubblefield, Brown, Donnell, Ben Clonch and Casenheiser scoring on 3 hits. The boys were absolutely worn out when they finally got off the field around midnight, after nine straight hours of baseball, but ended the game and the season in high spirits. The Bulldogs 8–8 record for the season is quite remarkable for a first-year team. Summer softball practice The first softball practice for girls ages 10–15 will be held on Wednesday, July 13 at 7 p.m. at Gaunt Park. The second practice wil be Saturday, July 16 at 10 a.m. All subsequent practices will be held on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. and Saturdays at 10 a.m. at Gaunt Park. Anyone interested is welcome; please bring a glove. For questions call Chris Lloyd at 767-9318.
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