Saturday, June 6, 2009

Boys will be boys

I coach a 9/10 year old baseball team. It's the first age group that plays kid pitch, so it is always an interesting time. We have this kid on the team, we'll call him Tommy, its his first season playing baseball, but he has played football and he's a good athlete. Tommy is always into the game and has a great attitude, and is a pretty good defensive player. He hasn't quite got the hitting thing down yet.
Well, in our second inning at-bat, Tommy asked to go to the bathroom. He was'nt batting for another several batters and there weren't any outs, so, no problem.
Fast forward to the forth inning.
Tommy: "Coach, I gotta pee"
Me: "boy, you just went in the second inning"
Tommy: "i've gotta go BAD'
Me: "You are next on deck. No, you can't go"
Tommy: "I can't hold it."
A voice from the dugout: "Do you have a gatorade bottle?"
Tommy: "Ya, but its half full"
A voice from the dugout: "hurry up and drink it"
The next thing I know is that there is a ruckus in the corner and kids exclaiming, "He's doing it!"
Tommy is behind the 55 gallon drum trash can peeing in the gatorade bottle. At that moment, he was supposed to be on deck. The kid at the plate strikes out, and I say, "dude, you've got to get out of here now."
He drops the bottle, the dugout erupts with panic, he runs to the plate, pants unziped, unsnapped, belt unbuckled. So, now he's in the batters box trying unsuccesfully to redress himself. The umpire is looking at him like he just peed in the dugout, and the 3rd base coach comes over and gives him a hand with getting himself back together.
Meanwhile, I look in the corner of the dugout, there are splatters of what I'm sure is urine on the wall and as I walk to the scene of the crime, I see a gatorade bottle laying on its side on the ground containing what appears to be a clear liquid. I pick up the bottle with my fingertips and toss it in the trash, getting another shocked response from the team.
I don't remember what Tommy did at his at bat, I'd like to say he hit a home run, but I know that wasn't the case. He was delighted to be the entertainment for a few minutes.

2 comments:

Lois and Jon said...

Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go!

RJR said...

Good thing you don't coach for a girls league.