In the summer of 1977, Sharon, my first wife, decided to sign our sons Aaron and Kenny up for T-ball. Since I had already coached Kenny in soccer, I had made a commitment earlier to get more involved with Aaron’s sporting activities. However, forces beyond my control kept me from living up this commitment I suppose it was just easier to find coaches for the older boys. So I wound up being named as the coach for Kenny’s team again.
After attending a coaches’ meeting, I found out that the team color assigned to us was brown. In those days only the brighter colors were popular along with black and white. Brown was hardly ever used, perhaps because it came in so many shades.
I did not think the boys or their parents and would be particularly happy with our color but we were stuck with it. The more I thought about it, however, the more I liked it. Brown was going to be unique. I began to think about a team name that the boys would embrace and that would reflect the color of our uniforms. Suddenly the name Spiders sounded awfully good, and when I presented it as a suggestion to the boys in practice they loved it.
So our team became even more unique. Among the Red Sox and the White Sox and the Cardinals and the Pirates and the Cubs and Astros, was a team called the Spiders. It had no relationship to any other baseball team whatsoever unless we were talking about the University of Richmond, I suppose.
Besides the brown colored uniforms, we had another obstacle to overcome – a real obstacle this time – one that could prevent us from winning the league championship. One of our players was challenged. Bill Zander had a hard birth and the effects of it were noticeable. He wasn’t bright. He wasn’t coordinated. He was hard of hearing. He was definitely not an athlete. In fact he would be an impediment to our team, especially since there was a league rule that everyone had to play and play for a considerable amount of time.
Bill did not come in at the same time as the rest of the boys. He showed up after one or two practices and only after I had received a phone call from the league. I was asked to take him as a favor and I said I would have to talk to the boys first.
I spoke to the boys and they agreed to have Bill put on our team. In my mind I thought they did not know what they were doing, and when they saw the effects he would have on us they would regret ever having said it was okay. After all, they were only seven-year-old boys. But I did not know the nature of these kids nor the nature of their parents.
As it turned out we had a very good team, Bill Zander notwithstanding. Our best player was a kid who I put on third base so he could make the long throws to first. His family seemed to just be getting by so it must have been much harder for them to come up with the cash to register him than it did for most of us. I cannot remember who played shortstop now but Kenny, my boy, was on second. Bill Bailey, who had also played on Kenny’s soccer team, played center field and a kid from New Jersey played first. His father was my first base coach. Bob Bailey, Bill’s father, was my third base coach. This was really the nucleus of our team.
Almost all our kids could hit so we were never out of a game. But where we excelled was when we were in the field. I believe we were just about the only seven-year-old team that could turn double plays, and we turned a lot of them. Most were the 5-4-3 kind thanks to our third baseman and Kenny. In that league a double play was usually a rarity but we made it common. The best one came from a one hopper to Bill Bailey in center field. He threw it to Ken standing on second and Ken relayed it on to first. That is the stuff memories are made of.
Summer was vacation season and it was especially hard on our team. We seemed to always be missing one or two players. That meant Bill Zander played as much as the other boys and he always played right field. Our outfield always had a right shift because of it.
One memory I had was when our first baseman, the kid from New Jersey, beat out a not-so-close infield hit. It was obvious to everyone except the umpire that our boy was already a couple of steps beyond the bag before the ball ever got there. Since his dad was coaching at first, he had a ringside seat of the play and, of course, he came very upset. I had to go out and settle things down, feeling rather smug about myself playing the role of cool headed peacemaker.
But when we took the field I would have to set an example of what I had just preached and it was going to be hard. In T-ball at this level, a hit to the outfield almost always meant a double. First base coaches sent the hitter to second as an automatic reflex. But our center fielder was Bill Bailey. He relayed the hit into Kenny and Kenny was waiting for the runner three steps in front of second, He applied the tag and… SAFE, the umpire yelled. It was very hard not to say anything and it was hard on the kids who saw their true achievements go for naught.
It turned out the umpire and the coach for the other team were very good friends. This would not be the last time I would have this experience, but fortunately it would only be one other time years later in the Katy Youth Soccer Association.
The best memory came when Bill Zander got his hit. It was the best he had all year by far but we still wondered if he could make it safely to first base. He did and our bench exploded. But now he was a base runner.
Bill always batted at the bottom of the order so the boys up next were the meat of our team. It seemed like they were on a mission the way they hit. And Bill Zander was treated like he had just hit a walk-off homerun when he crossed the plate.
At the end of the season Bill’s dad confided in me about the anguish he and his wife went through when Bill told them he wanted to play. They tried very hard to talk him out of it but Bill would not be discouraged. Even after they signed him up they worried about what kind of experience it would be for him. As it turned out Bill loved it and his dad thanked me for it.
I told him I was only a very small part of that success. Were it not for the kind of parents and boys we had it could have been quite different. They were the ones that made it work.
We did not win the championship. We came in second. If we had not had Bill Zander it is quite likely we could have been champions, but who is to say. At that age even the best kids make mistakes.
If Bill Zander had not existed, and we had been champions, the Spiders would have been remembered as one of my championship teams and fortunately I had several. But because of Bill Zander, his teammates, and their wonderful parents, this is the most memorable team I have ever coached.
