An open letter to Coach,
You are probably tired of me heckling from the cheap seats in the grandstand, so I thought I'd take the time to write a fan letter instead. I do more booing than I'm proud of. Once I even called on you to quit coaching. You're not good at it, I said. It's not even your job, I said. I now admit I was wrong. You were right. I'm embarrassed if I ever sound like that fan in the picture above.
After watching a couple of games in this new season, I've come to a conclusion. You're a new coach with an inexperienced team. Your starting lineup has a couple of rookies, three sophomores, and one junior. The most seasoned player on the team is yourself, in just your fourth season, none as coach. The team has talent, but needs good coaching. It's hard to coach when you have to play every day yourself. But I urge you to find time to do it.
It's no knock on a young team that it looks, well, inept at times. I remember the 1962 New York Mets, an expansion team that was so bad that they lost 120 of their 160 games. Their coach, the former New York Yankee Hall-of-Famer Casey Stengel, once was so frustrated by mistakes that he called out to the field from the dugout, "Can't anybody here play this game?" Keep hope, Coach. Those same fledgling New York Mets, in just seven short years, went from worst to first, winning the World Series in 1969. All they needed was a little coaching...and Tom Seaver.
This year, there are a few things I picked up on from way up in the grandstand. The player you've got batting fifth, maybe he isn't your cleanup hitter, but he's a reliable singles hitter for you and could hit for a little power with a little coaching. He takes too long adjusting his batting gloves, kicking the dirt in the batter's box, tapping the plate with his bat, taking practice swings, only to eventually foul the pitch off because he distracted himself with too many things that don't matter. You just need to get him to keep his eye on the ball and he'll produce for you.
Then there's your first baseman. He's a rookie and it shows. In last week's game, he was supposed to be holding a runner on first base, a Korean, I think, but thankfully her ethnicity didn't matter to him. What mattered to him was the runner on second base. Your first baseman insisted on telling the runner on first to shorten her lead-off, she couldn't go anywhere, there was a runner on second, etc. Anyway, he could use some coaching, gently, to stay focused on his own job on first base and let the runners decide for themselves how to run the bases.
Your third baseman is also a rookie who made a different rookie mistake. He was trying to apply the old "non-conforming use" rule in a situation that demanded the "special permit" rule. We've all been there. Before he got himself too tied up, the umpire stopped the game and tried to explain the difference in the two rules. This is one of those things best learned in the minors, but finding raw talent brought straight up to the majors, you probably should spend extra time in practice going over the finer points of the game. You know, something like pinning "Coach's tip of the week: How to make a special permit play" up on the bulletin board. Or something. I've been watching this game for years and I admit I couldn't tell you all the finer points of it, so everyone would benefit from your tips.
Finally, Coach, let me point out a few "rookie" mistakes I've seen you yourself make, and one you seem to have already corrected.
One is a little thing, but it can have a big impact on people. You know that nice, quiet player everybody likes? I think you consistently call him by the wrong name. Talk to him privately and ask him what he would like to be called. He's so nice he'll tell you it doesn't matter, and it probably doesn't, but press him anyway. And ask him to check your pronunciation. It's one thing to use the wrong name; hearing the wrong name mispronounced is worse.
Secondly, you should spend more time thinking back on the coach you replaced. He wasn't fired. He retired a winner. He knew a thing or two. He had standards. And he shared those standards in his public remarks. He didn't just play the ball, he told us "why" he played the ball the way he did. You can go Coach V. one better by, before calling on others to make a play, before they say "Yes" or "No", ask them to explain why. That will not only sharpen their own play. It will sharpen the play of everyone else in the field, too.
Another thing I learned from watching Coach V. is something that I think you might have picked up on yourself and are now making part of your own coaching. There was a game where Coach V. said to a new player taking the field, not on our team, but not an "opponent," either, not really. It was someone who didn't speak English and probably never saw a game of baseball before. Coach V. said "I totally appreciate that you're a first time player. Thank you for playing the game. Thank you for taking the risk. It's not a simple thing to do, and I truly understand that." Coach, I saw you do something similar in the game last week. To another new player who didn't speak English, you said, "There are no indications of any thing that would prevent us from wanting to welcome you as a ballplayer here." I was watching the game on television, so you couldn't have seen me, but when you gave that welcome, I raised my beer, and said, "Attaboy, Coach."
Yours,
A baseball fan.
1 comment:
Great metaphor!
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