
I think the first year I played organized baseball was when I was in 3rd grade. It’s not like today where some parents have their kids on the traveling elite team with the matching uniforms and equipment bags before they even turn 2…..
I think my batting average that first year was .076. And no, I’m not kidding.
You know why I remember that? Here’s why; my coach was a total jerk. No, seriously, he really was. He made a point at the end of every game to run through the five worst batting averages on the team. Lucky me. Mine was always one of the five worst. Keep in mind…I was 8 years old……
He yelled at kids when they missed balls or missed the cut off man or whatever. He let his kid pitch every game even though he wasn’t very good. He kicked bats when we struck out (and no one struck out more than me). And he even made fun of the baseball glove I had, which admittedly, wasn’t anything fancy but We all knew I wasn’t going to catch anything standing way out in right field anyway.
I don’t want to belabor the point here, but this guy actually made me HATE baseball.
Then, in my second year of little league (and don’t ask me why I decided to play another year after that first one) I played for a guy named Bill Lampe.
If I remember right, Coach Lampe was about as close to a real version of Walter Matthau’s character from the “Bad News Bears”as you could get. He always looked like he had just rolled out of bed and thrown on whatever clothes he found on the floor. His socks usually didn’t match. His face was sort of oddly shaped and rumpled, like either he had been a boxer at one time, or spent his nights sleeping face down on a hard wood floor. He smoked cigarettes during practice, which would certainly be taboo these days, but of course, no one thought much about back then.
And you know what? Bill Lampe was the single best coach I ever had; In any sport, at any age, all the way up through high school.
He never kicked bats, or swore or yelled at us, even when we struck out. And whenever I struck out, which was still fairly often though not nearly as often as the year before, he’d put his big old arm around my shoulder and say “Don’t you worry, Mikey. You’ll get ‘em next time.”
His son played for our team and he was really good. But he didn’t get to pitch every single game and sometimes he had to sit on the bench so some of the other not-so-good kids could play too.
And Coach Lampe always, always, always made us believe that the way we played the game and the way we interacted with our teammates was infinitely more important than whether we won or lost. He didn’t tolerate better players making fun of weaker ones and he set the perfect example of how we should all treat each other. Not just in baseball….but in life.
I got a lot better playing under Coach Lampe and even made the All Star Team that year. I’m not sure that my skills had improved that dramatically, but my attitude had. I really believed that Coach Lampe thought I could be good, or at least better, and I wanted to prove that he was right.
I’ve had the chance to coach my son’s baseball team for the last 3 or so years. While I was never much of a player, I think I’m a pretty good coach. And that’s because at least once every practice or game I think to myself “- WWCLD……..What would Coach Lampe do?”
And Coach? Thanks for teaching me as much about life as you did about baseball.