Trying out

The brochure was so shiny and you could still smell the fresh ink on the pages.  Pictures of happy smiling people, lots of activities to do, sports teams, history, and pretty girls.  For a kid in the 8th grade, I was mesmerized by the brochure for this great school.  I just had to get in.

At our Catholic junior high, all of us 8th graders were being wooed by the four Catholic high schools in the city.  One of the school was all-girls, and one was all-boys.  The other two were coed.  My choice was clear from the beginning.  There was no way in hell I was going to spend the next four years with a bunch of guys snapping their towels at each others naked asses in gym class.  I was still haunted by memories from grade school of all of my male classmates and I having to swim au naturale at the Boys Club every Tuesday.  Just the thought of repeating the scene of being with a bunch of naked dudes in a swimming pool did not appeal to me (I just realized why I quit the YMCA a couple of years ago).   Besides, this school seemed more like a military boarding school to me, and I just knew that I would not thrive there.

The all-girls school seemed intriguing for obvious reasons, but I did not have the legs for the watch plaid skirt, and I knew that swimming naked just did not happen there, even though I thought about that a lot as a young man, but that's another topic altogether, and this is a PG rated blog.

The two schools left went neck and neck in my decision process for a while, but the purple and white brochure just haunted me.   The mascot for the purple school was a medieval armored horseman called a Guardian.  He looked tough and rugged, and had no interest in naked gang swimming.  The other school mascot was a dude called a Nap who kept his hand in his shirt and wore a cape.  Also, the school colors were powder blue and white.  The choice was clear.  What the hell is a Nap?  Powder blue and white? (I know who Napoleon was).

I wanted nothing more than to play on a varsity sports team in high school.  I wanted to earn my varsity letterman jacket and wear it all year round, and hopefully get my picture in next year's school brochure.  I understood that as a freshman that I probably would not make a varsity team, but I was willing to pay my dues by playing on freshman or JV teams.  I was just a lanky thing with arms and legs that looked like car radio antennas, but I was determined.

I went to the athletic directors' office the second day of school, which was located in the basement of one of the buildings to inquire about football tryouts.  He told me that they went very well ... about two weeks ago. He said that if I wanted to try out for water-boy there was a sign-up sheet. 

The next chance to make a school team would be in November.  Basketball or hockey.  I can't dribble, and I can't skate so it looked like I was going to have a chance to bulk up all fall and winter, and ponder if being a Nap really would have been all that bad.

Baseball tryouts came in early March and I was ready.  I had played for my grammar school, and in Little League.  I knew the game, and could pitch fairly well.  I had learned to throw a curve, a slider, and even had the beginnings of a knuckleball.  I learned from my brother's friend who was one of the great pitcher's for that all male high school that I had mentioned before, and had gone on to coach for that school.  There were three baseball teams having tryouts; varsity, junior varsity, and a freshman team as well.  I though that even if I could not compete with the sophomores, juniors, and seniors for varsity or JV, I could surely make the freshman team.

There were no ball fields at my high school.  We were located on a city block in the inner-city.  The tryout field for baseball was over by the airport, about five or six miles away.  The seniors and juniors hopped into their cars with all of their buddies on the first tryout day.  If you knew one of them, you could hitch a ride.  The school did not provide transportation to tryouts, so unless you figured it out, you were pretty much screwed before you even had a chance to tryout.

Not this kid.  There was no frigin' way that I was going to miss baseball tryouts.  I jumped into a car with about ten other kids.  I knew the guy that was driving from the cafeteria.  He liked to throw food at freshman, and I think he beaned me with a brownie about a month ago.  I pulled my hat down over my face and did not make eye contact with him.  I had someone's cleat digging into my leg, and the guy who's lap I was sitting in seemed a little too friendly, and I thought that I recognized him from Tuesday's at the Boys Club, but I did not care.  I was going to tryout for baseball.

After the first day, it was clear that the varsity team was full of seniors and juniors  I suspected that the JV team was going to be mostly juniors, sophomores, and maybe a couple of freshman.  I set my sights on the freshman team.  The next day, the same scene in the school parking lot happened with everyone scrambling for a ride.  Once again, I jumped in with the Cafeteria Kid and Mr. Friendly, and off to tryouts we went.

For my turn at bat, I hit three of the ten pitches into left center field, two grounded through the middle past the short stop, two up the third base line, popped up two, and fouled one over the backstop.  These pitches were puffballs with no real heat on them, so hitting them was not a big deal.  That said, some kids did whiff.  My confidence was growing.

The Varsity coach lined a bunch of us up and asked what positions that we played.  When I replied "pitcher", I was sure that he would be impressed.  "Why don't you try outfield", he smirked instead.  "Sure coach", I replied hoping that he would like my willingness to do whatever he wanted, and would let me pitch later.


I never got that chance and I did not make the cut.  I was bummed, but I knew that I had given it my best shot.   I realized shortly after that this coach was heavily involved in the Babe Ruth baseball league and knew a lot of the kids trying out.  He knew who his pitchers were before tryouts even began.  He had no interest in some lanky kid with antenna arms.  I was happy for my buddies that made the team, and even happier that I did not have to ride in Mr. Friendly's lap for the rest of the season.

So baseball did not work out.   In my next posting, the story continues with Plan B.   Right now, I need a Nap.  Ha!