June 21, 2007

sports

T-ball: it’s good and holy, too

By Jimmy Chesire

I blew my whistle. “Okay all you t-ball players! Line up!” I sang out, trying to get the kids to line up on the third baseline. It was time to play a little t-ball.

Zenya Hoff-Miyazaki, 5, and his mom, Ruth Hoff, pulled me aside.

“Zenya wants to ask you something,” Ruth says.

Okay.

“Can I — , can I — ?” he started, holding out this neon-bright, purplish pink plastic whistle he has hanging around his neck. “Can I blow it, can I blow the whistle when — ?”

When I say ready, set, go?

He nodded eagerly, his radiant brown eyes glowing, his whole countenance a mask of anticipation as rich as the robes of heaven.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, but in my excitement at being with the kids, at being surrounded by a gang of 35 to 40 loving, happy children, many of them with their eyes trained on me — that’s a lot of love and excitement to have aimed your way — well, I forgot my promise.

“T-ball players, take your mark! Get set — .” And just as I was about to give a Herculean blast on my whistle, Zenya stepped forward, his splendid purple whistle lifted to his lips: Now? Now?

Oh. Yes. Right.

And together we gave a pair of mighty, ear-splitting blasts that sent our magnificent band of t-ballers racing to the outfield.

Once there, we do our exercises. Simple warm-up exercises. Which almost no child aged 2–9 ever really needs to do because they come warmed up, they come loose and limber, raring to go. Take, for example, our leg stretching exercise. We sit on the ground, dropping our bums into the thick, emerald green grass of right field. “Okay, now put the bottoms of your feet together,” I’ll say three, four, five, six times. Repetition is good. It’s always good. “Okay? Okay?” And then, with most of the children cooperating, I invited them — and the daring adults who sit with us, which is most of them! Thank you — it is one of the many deep pleasures of this work, to see how many adults do the exercises with us, modeling for the children both how to do the exercises and how to have fun and be silly with them at the same time — to do the stretch:

“Okay, now see if you can touch your nose to your toes — your nose to your toes, okay?”

And they do, nearly every single one of these kids, dropping their heads, bending their bodies in half as easily as you and I would fold a piece of paper.

So, if they’re already so limber, so loose, why bother with these exercises?

Two reasons: one, because kids (and adults, too) love, need and flourish with ritual, which is something I learned when my 28-year-old daughter was a toddler watching all those kids’ shows on TV. The best shows had a routine you could count on and the best hosts did some of the same things, and often in the exact same order, every show; such as Mr. Rogers starting every show by singing his “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” song — that and shedding his suit jacket and dress shoes, replacing them with his comfortable old cardigan and his house slippers. The repetition was consoling, it was comforting, it built our self esteem: we were proud we were smart enough to know what was coming next, and it made the show ours.

Two, we do exercises because of what happened when we tried to decide how many jumping jacks to do.

“I think we should do one million five hundred thousand two of those, okay?”

And the children roared in protest. “No! No! No!”

How many then?

“Infinity!” “Ten.” “A google.” “Five.” “Six. “A hundred.” “Zero!” I egged them on, trying to get as many children calling out a number as possible, when suddenly a chant went up. A half dozen kids were chanting,

“Ze-ro! Ze-ro! Ze-ro!”

It began to catch on. A dozen were doing it now.

“Ze-ro! Ze-ro”

There were 35–40 children. The dozen or so in the center of the pack were doing the chanting, “Zero! Zero! Zero!” doing it together, in perfect harmony, “Zero! Zero! Zero!” It was musical. Magical. The number of kids chanting swelled. The 15 became 20, “Ze-ro!, Ze-ro!” The 20 became 25.

“Ze-ro! Ze-ro! Ze-ro!”

Two boys, David Walker, 6, and Suloman Chappelle, 6, were happily pumping their fists in the air, in perfect rhythm with the chanting. It was 30 kids now. The air was moving.

“Ze-ro! Ze-ro! Ze-ro!”

It was remarkable. Spontaneous. It was the children discovering their power, on their own, by themselves. It was the children asserting their independence, it was the children bursting with creativity. It was exhilarating. An astonishing moment. Good and holy.

And that’s the Perry League, Yellow Springs’ good and holy t-ball program for all the community’s children ages 2–9 regardless of race, color or creed. We’re at Gaunt Park every Friday night from 6:30–8 p.m., trying to be good and holy, fomenting a little rebellion along the way. Children can begin to play at anytime and there’s no requirement to come every week — come when you like, come when you can. We’ll be out there, trying to have as much fun as we can for the next seven Friday nights, till our final potluck trophy-to-every-kid-who-shows-up night, Aug. 3. So why don’t you come on out and chant with us. We’d love it if you did, we surely would.

Bulldogs beat Sox, Raiders

By Karen Wintrow

The Patterson Park Flyers came back to Gaunt Park Wednesday looking for revenge after the Dogs’ come-from-behind-win the Saturday before and they found it with a final score of Flyers 12, Bulldogs 5. The Bulldogs’ bats were not as hot as usual with the offensive highlights being hits from Jonathon Haller and Ethan Brown, both of whom scored 2 RBIs.

Friday found the Bulldogs under the lights for an 8:30 night game against the Beavercreek Sox. The hitting was hot again with runs in every inning. Tyler Fox led off the game with a double, then scored on a single from Jamie Kitzmiller. Jarrett Moon hit a triple in the third scoring Kitzmiller, and Lucas Donnell hit a 2 RBI single in the fourth with Moon and Brown scoring. Generally, the Sox pitching was shaky, giving up lots of walks with the final blow to the game being a balk call that scored a run in the fourth and set the Sox coaches into arguing with the home plate umpire, never a good idea. The umpire called the game at the end of the fourth inning, giving the win to the Dogs with a score of 15–4.

The Bulldogs faced the Patterson Park Raiders on Father’s Day at the beautiful Oakwood High School Field. Scoring went back and forth the entire game, starting with a 2 run first inning for the Dogs. Donnell relieved Andrew Ferguson, who left in the second with a sore arm. He moved back to second base in the sixth after taking a hard line drive to the shoulder after which he was able to make the final out of the fifth inning, fielding the ball and throwing to Haller at first. The Bulldogs were hitting well, with Jake Kepler getting three singles on the day and Anthony Pettiford, Jack Daily, Kitzmiller, Moon and Donnell all getting hits.

At the beginning of the seventh inning, the Bulldogs were down by 3 but the bats came out strong with Haller leading off with a single, Kitzmiller following with a double, both scoring on RBIs from Brown and Donnell. Shaky Raiders pitching then put men on with walks and by hit batters. Speedy Pettiford scored on a wild pitch. All of this allowed the Dogs to score 6, ending the inning up by 3. At this point it was getting quite dark, making it difficult to see the ball. The Raiders were able to come back in the bottom of the seventh with three hits, scoring 4 runs and putting the final score at Bulldogs 12, Raiders 13.

Join us at 8:30 the next two Fridays for games under the lights at Gaunt Park and the final home game of the season on July 6.

Minor’s busy first week

After the first full week of Minor League baseball, the Indians, Dragons and Yankees were all tied at the top of the standings with records of 2–1, followed by the Pirates at 2–2 and the Reds at 0–3.

The week began on Monday, June 11, with the Dragons holding on to a five-run lead to edge out the Reds, 5–4. Jake Savage led the Dragons with a triple, a single, two runs scored and two batted in. Eric Lawhorn drove in two runs and Sam Salazar scored twice after starting the game with a leadoff double. Ruth Scherr and Joey Flores each contributed two hits and an RBI for the Reds.

On Wednesday, June 13, the Yankees rallied from four runs down to defeat the Indians, 6–5. A strong Indians defense held the Yanks scoreless in the first three innings as they built a four-run lead. But the Yankees’ bats came alive in the bottom of the fourth, led by newcomer Evelyn Green, who started the rally that added five more runs to secure the win. Joe Thorp went 2 for 2, scored a run and knocked in two others, while Jacob Whetsel also went 2 for 2 including a triple, Cole Harding had a pair of RBIs and Olivia Greco went 2 for 2.

Friday’s game was a rematch of the season opener a week earlier, but with a different outcome as the Pirates overtook the Dragons 7–5 in another close game. The Pirates started off slowly with the first three batters all going down against the Dragons’ tough infield defense. The Dragons scored three runs off six hits in their half of the first inning started by Desiree Clark’s lead-off double. The Pirates roared back in the top of the second with Isaiah Taylor’s first of his two home runs in the game. William Evans played an outstanding game, going 3 for 3 with a pair of doubles and an alert defensive play in the fourth that resulted in a double play. Pirates Aaron Sherwood and Kennedy and Kaner Butler also added singles.

The action on Saturday, June 16, began with the Yankees defeating the Reds 4–1, followed by the Indians’ 14–4 pounding of the Pirates. Adam Green and Sam Butler each went 3 for 3 and scored three runs. For the Indians, Fielding Lewis and Edward Johnson both scored twice after each hitting a single and a double. Sam Crawford added a run and three base hits while Max Mullin and Liam Weigand each singled and added a run and Cayden Tong-Defusco had three singles in as many trips to the plate. Defensively, the Indians only allowed 10 hits while throwing out a dozen Pirate runners. But the Pirates didn’t give up, as Devon Perry scored first when he was knocked in by Kennedy Butler’s second inning single. Kaner Butler and Augie Knemeyer each scored a run after going 2 for 2 at the plate while Aaron Sherwood hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth that knocked in Isaiah Taylor, who had previously hit a two-run triple. Defensively, Perry, Knemeyer and Baggett all snagged hard hit infield fly balls.

More information is available at www.htosports.com/YSMINORLEAGUE.

Borchers wins at outdoor nationals

Sam Borchers became the fastest high school miler ever from the state of Ohio last weekend when he won the 1600-meter race, at the Nike High School Outdoor Nationals at North Carolina A & T University in Greensboro. His time of 4:03.33 was a vast improvement on his former best time of 4:12 in the mile, and it surpassed John Zishka’s state record of 4:03.85 set in 1980. Ben Hubers of Marietta, Georgia, came in second in 4:04.98, followed by Evan Jager from Algonquin, Ill. in 4:05.68.

Borchers time was the third fastest time in Nike High School championship meet history, just behind Gabe Jennings, the 2000 Olympian in the 1500-meter run.

Borchers will race again in the preliminaries on Friday and the finals on Saturday, June 23 and 24, in the 1500-meter run at the USA Track and Field Nationals in Indianapolis, Ind.