A coach with perfect pitch

(Mark Whalen)

Saturday, June 7. Misty, English weather visits Lyons Field, Newton. This afternoon, the arc of freshly leafed trees ringing the diamond looks dark gray and the sky is phosphorescent gray; the new grass shines pale green. A mower and two weed whackers envelope the gathering team in an aggregate hum.

We're bees in a working hive. Coach Bob Joyce penetrates the buzzing with a drumbeat of abrupt communications, often tough, often approving.

He's the rhythm of the dozen kids' hustle, willing his Newton West Little League team, the Cubs, to higher accomplishment.

He unleashes the gruff bark ("Get rid of the ball!") and the ribbing growl ("Your hair blocking your view?"). He issues the silent treatment in two forms: without eye contact (to a habitually late arrival), and with brief glare (for a second failure to get the glove down ahead of a grounder). He gives respect to a high catch ("Great stretch at first, Kevin-Michael!") and a tumbling catch ("That's on tonight's top plays, Alex!").

On game days, he'll add another mode of communication - one surprisingly gentle. Fans may be gripped by the players' occasional feats. But they're also held by the spectacle of successive failures, each frustrating or satisfying, depending on whose team it visits. The ump's rude thumb declares a batter or runner out three times each half-inning. Defense fails at least once per game, and usually more often, the ump's arm waving as a hit slips through, and a runner crosses the plate. The cycle of ups and outs always includes time for redemption - right up through these last games of the season.

Surprising from a guy who comprehends with precision the mindfulness and technique that good play demands, Joyce's midgame comments reframe his players' every failure as one-off events that are normal, might well not happen next time, and contain some ember of advantage besides. The paradoxical effect of this flow of soothing comments is both to acknowledge the failure and diminish the stress of letting down teammates, which, of course, is inevitable in a game that, by design, is too difficult to play well all the time.

His reframing acknowledges failure, but also lightens a player's mind in the interest of success next time around.

His praise fills every game just as his tough comments fill practices: After my son, Will, or any other Cub, has swung above or below or behind or before the ball for strike one or two, Joyce may chant (with ritual, not conversational, melody) "Good cut! You're a hitter."

And after one of those contact-free "good cuts" is followed by the ump's "Strike three!" the coach and team members - and we assistant coaches who've learned his style of constructive consolation - often sing out, "Good at bat! You made him show you a lot of pitches," or perhaps, "Great rips. You're a hitter, you're a hitter."

Coaches often remark that Little League teaches kids to stay optimistic in the face of repeated failures. My son's anticipation of each next game, even those following fielding stumbles or batting slumps, confirms this. But the game teaches something else too - the value of selective praise. I practice this sort of encouragement; following Coach Bob's example, I've shouted "Good cut!" during hundreds of at-bats this season.

And a few days after this practice, at the annual softball game for the Newton West league's coaches, I experience that same selective praise from the receiver's perspective.

While my son Will's sports genes likely emanate from a maternal great-grandfather who played football for Harvard in 1898, none of my forebears played ball, and they were not missed.

My son's sports skills astonish me. His toddler photos look something like mine. But for good reason, I grew up batting last and playing the position known in my sixth-grade gym class as "far-right field."

I recall stopping the few fly balls that came my way with my glasses, instead of my glove.

Many of the coaches at the softball game had played high school and college ball. The stars confidently assign themselves infield positions. I make my way back to far-right field with the certainty that this is where I belong.

To my relief, nothing comes my way through the early innings. Up at bat, I first hear those familiar coaching chants: "Come on, Kramer, you're a hitter, you're a hitter, good swing, keep your head in . . ."

I do. My bunt-like hit and scurry up the base path so surprises the hulking fielders that I make it to first - though no farther.

Back in the safety of far-right, I watch those opposing players smack a homer, a double, a single. That's when a lefty batter hits a fly my way. "Yours! Catch it!" a nearby teammate hollers. I take three steps in, and feel the ball slip into the pocket of my glove. I look at it. It hasn't rolled out. Grinning with triumph, I hold the ball high, like a Fenway fan who's caught a foul. And then I hear the other guys shouting - the same words I've often shouted to their kids - "Throw it in, the runner's tagged up!" Startled, embarrassed, I flip it to the cutoff man, who throws it to second. But the runner has long-since arrived.

Many runs later, the inning ends. I trot in, past coaches taking the field, and three or four who know me say things like "Great catch," and "Good out - you're a player," with that same chanted melody, while tactfully ignoring my tardy throw, just as Joyce might in a game.

And when I return to far-right the next inning, I think what I'd never dared to out there half-a-century back - that if another fly ball comes my way, I might just catch that one too.

Mark Kramer is chronicling his season as a coach with the Newton West Little League Cubs. He can be e-mailed at kramernarrative@gmail.com.