Author's Note: Winning that special game as a young boy can be a memorable event in the eyes and mind of any athlete. A city baseball championship is the pinnacle event for any boy's summer. Pay attention to the details I have provided readers in this narrative and descriptive piece.
Winning, we are told, isn't everything, but to a teenage boy playing summer baseball, it sure can be sweet. It most certainly was this season, the summer of my 7th to 8th grade year, 1974 to be exact. I was a member of the top baseball team in Waukesha Park and Rec baseball. We were city champions when it was all said and done, winning convincingly in the championship game vs the south side Roberta Park players, the "A's". Winning was indeed everything this particular summer.
The "Twins", comprised mostly of kids from the Dopp Park area of Waukesha, which is near the hospital, was an amazing group of players. We had two solid pitchers who had mastered the curve ball and off speed pitch, along with nasty fastballs, and a catcher, myself, who could handle the challenging aspects of what happens when a curve pitch drops two and a half feet through the strike zone. The coaches knew I could handle the pressure of each pitch by the way they instructed me to call the game. Along with great pitching, our hitters were phenomenal for young boys of 12 and 13 years old. This was largely due to our daily pick-up baseball games for months on end prior to the season. Many a baseball we wore out, eventually wrapping the ball of string in masking tape after the leather cover had torn off to keep the games going. This scenario was much like the famous movie "The Sandlot", minus the big dog and junkyard.
With the undefeated regular season complete and the playoffs in full swing, the championship game was next upon us. "Steve, today's game will be a tough one because these guys are great hitters; we need you and John to be on your 'A' games today", said the coaches. John was our older, more control oriented pitcher. He would lead the game off by pitching the first five or six innings, and we would conclude with Tim, our "fireballer" in the seventh. When Tim, our younger pitcher, enters a game, the entire team knows that victory is certain that day.
The final game began like most others that year: our first six hitters rocked the ball hard, scoring six runs in the first four innings. Defensively we were strong as well, only allowing one runner to get to second base on a bloop double down the first base line in the third inning. John had six "K's" by this time, well on his way to his usual "double digit" strike out game. When the fifth inning came around, a lead off homer by the"A's" first basemen, a sense of urgency was felt by our team. Not really the worrying kind, I felt things were well at hand; this was proven by our shutout innings which followed this "fluke" homer.
Confidently our team reached the final inning up by five runs with our "closer" entering the game. As the what would be the last batter of the contest walked up to the plate, our fans cheering loudly for the final out, I raised my hand with two fingers held high, yelling to my team, "two down, who wants the last out?" With that call, Tim gave me a "no problem" look and proceeded to nail three straight strikes, the last being the most nasty curve ball I had seen that day. When the umpire cried "strike three", and the batter looked bewildered as to path of that "cliff-dropping" pitch, the championship was won!
My fist flew up towards the sky with the game ball in my glove, as I ran towards the player's mob at the pitcher's mound. We had done it; despite various setbacks we had to overcome: the family vacations which caused kids to miss games, the rain outs which caused us to play three games in five days one week, and the loss of our starting second baseman due to injury, the Twins were Waukesha City League Champions. This season, especially this day, would be etched in the record books, along with the minds of the young men who played that day on the winning team.
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