Another one of Mr. Gonzo’s problems was that

he didn’t know how to conduct a practice. He was a

great believer in delegating authority. He’d delegate the

responsibility of hitting fly balls to one of the secondstringers

so that the starting outfielders could get some

fielding practice. The trouble was, the guy he sent to hit

the fly balls could hardly swing the bat, so the outfielders

would stand out there for a half hour while the guy

would hit weak pop-ups or anemic little grounders. It

was nothing like what happened in a real game.

Then Mr. Gonzo would set up batting practice. He

wouldn’t let our two best pitchers—and calling them the

best wasn’t saying much—pitch batting practice because

he wanted to save their arms for real games, so he was left

with an assortment of uncoordinated clunkers who made

up the rest of our pitching staff. I don’t want to be cruel or

anything, but these guys were bad—real bad. They could

never throw the ball over the plate, which, of course,

didn’t help our hitting much since we never saw a strike in

batting practice. When batting, we would stand up there,

patiently waiting for a good pitch, but soon we’d start

getting bored, so we would decide to swing at anything.

That would really mess us up because in a game, we’d

wind up swinging at everything, including bad pitches.

Needless to say, batting practice was a disaster.

After batting practice was mercifully over, old Mr.

Gonzo would begin his biggest farce of them all. He

would lead us in a drill called game situations, in which

he would set up a real-life game situation, and we were

supposed to learn what to do in that situation. He’d start

with runners on first and second and one out, and a hitand-

run was on. We’d all take the field, and two players

would be the base runners. There’d be a batter, but he

wouldn’t hit the ball. Mr. Gonzo would stand off to the

side and hit the ball out of his hand. That way, he could

control where the ball was hit. The pitcher would pitch

the ball to the catcher, and Mr. Gonzo would hit a ball

out to one of us fielders. He’d start with a simple fly ball

out to left field, which the left fielder would drop, and

the whole situation would be ruined because of course, he

was supposed to catch the ball. So Mr. Gonzo would try

again—same situation. He then, he hit a grounder to me

at short. I caught it, and I had to throw to first because the

runners were going, and there was no chance for a double

play. Fine. But the first baseman dropped the ball. We

tried again. He hit me another grounder. I caught it but

threw it two feet over the first baseman’s head. We tried

again. Mr. Gonzo gave up on me and hit a grounder to the

| 23

third baseman. Well, the third baseman had moved over

to the bag to cover for the steal, so the ball dribbled out

into left field. We tried again. He told the third baseman

to stay put until the ball was hit, and Mr. Gonzo hit

him another grounder. He stayed put. Fine. But the ball

went right through his legs. We tried again—same play.

He hit another easy grounder to the third baseman. He

stayed put. Fine. He caught the ball. Fine. The runners

were going, so he had no play except to first. He threw

to first. Fine. But he threw the ball two feet over the first

baseman’s head. We tried again—same situation. This 

time, Mr. Gonzo figured he might have better luck if he

tried the outfield. He hit a fly ball to center field. Well,

the center fielder had become bored with all the screwups

in the infield, so he wasn’t paying attention. He never saw

the ball, and it dropped in front of him. We tried again.

Mr. Gonzo hit another fly to center. The center fielder

was paying attention. Fine. He got under the ball. Fine.

But he dropped it. We tried again. Mr. Gonzo hit another

fly ball. The fielder caught this one. Great. He saw that

the runner from first—who was darn tired from running

every time—was slowly going back to first, so he threw

the ball to first. Great. But he uncorked a real doozy of a

throw that sailed two feet over the first baseman’s head.

Finally, Mr. Gonzo gave up on that situation and tried

another one, but for some reason, he made the situation

even harder and more complicated. He must have thought

we had the first-and-second, nobody-out hit-and-run

situation mastered. This time, he tried a bases-loaded,

one-out suicide squeeze. Well, we must have worked on

24 |

that for about an hour, and we never once got it right.

Finally, Mr. Gonzo stopped the futile ordeal when the

runner from third base nearly passed out from running

home so many times.

In a word, Mr. Gonzo’s practices were a disaster.

Seriously.

One of Mr. Gonzo’s most notable attributes was his

patience. He could put up with all kinds of crap and not

really get mad. Of course, sometimes he should have

gotten mad to get a little respect. But anyway, all in all,

he was a patient guy. The only time Mr. Gonzo really blew

his stack was at me. It was during the Wayfield game,

and of course, we were losing. The score was about 14–3,

and I managed to lead off the sixth inning with a solid

double down the third-base line. There I was, on second

base, and Jonathan, one of our pitchers, was over coaching

third. Jonathan and I were good friends, and we kibitzed

around a lot, except during a game, because during a

game, Jonathan had a way of getting super serious. I

mean, we could be losing by eleven runs, and there was

Jonathan, talking it up on the third-base coaching lines,

shouting encouragement and all kinds of senseless things.

Well, anyway, there I was on second base, kind of

pleased with myself for hitting a double, and there was

Jonathan with a serious look on his face, flashing signals

to me. Now, remember what I said about how Mr. Gonzo

had a very professional and intricate system of signs? Well,

Jonathan was probably the only person on the team who

actually knew all the signs, and Jonathan took great

pride in his third-base coaching, especially because the

| 25

third-base coach had the responsibility of relaying the

signs from Mr. Gonzo to the batter and the base runners.

Well, Jonathan was going through a thousand signs and

decoy signs, and all of a sudden, I saw him flash the steal

sign. Now, I had pretty good speed, and I ran the bases

hard like the Mick did when his legs were still good, but

of course, it wasn’t easy to steal third, and it was darn

stupid to risk it when you were down by eleven runs. So

I was stunned. I took a good lead, but when the pitcher

pitched, I stayed put. I watched Jonathan again. He went

through his stupid sign-giving ritual, and there it was

again: the steal sign. The steal sign was a tug on the bill of

the cap, followed by two hand claps. With all the decoys

Jonathan gave, it could get pretty difficult to pick out

the steal sign, but I was positive he gave it, so on the next

pitch, I took off for third. Zap! They nailed me. It wasn’t

even close. I brushed off my pants and trotted toward the

bench, and old Mr. Gonzo started screaming his head off.

“We’re down eleven runs! Why in heaven’s name are

you trying to steal?”

“Well, Jonathan gave me the steal sign,” I said meekly.

“The steal sign?” Mr. Gonzo screamed with smoke

coming out of his ears. “What steal sign? I didn’t give any

signs. We’re down eleven runs. Why am I going to give

a steal sign?”

I didn’t have anything else to say, so I sat down. When

the inning ended, I went over to Jonathan and asked him

if he had given me the steal sign. Jonathan was as serious

as could be.

26 |

“Hell no. That wasn’t no steal sign. That was just a

decoy.”

“A decoy?” I said.

“Yeah. They were probably expecting us to try

something to get a rally going, so I wanted to try to

confuse them by flashing a lot of signs,” Jonathan said.

“Confuse them?” I said.

“Yeah. Didn’t you see that I coughed in between

touching the cap and clapping my hands? Coughing is

the nullifier sign. It nullifies the previous sign. I kept

coughing through the whole darn sequence. What did ya

think—I had whooping cough or something? You should

have seen that the steal sign was off.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. But

come to think of it, Jonathan was right. As I went out to

my position at shortstop, I remembered one boring skull

session back in the middle of April when Mr. Gonzo was

trying to explain his dopey signs to us. At one point, when

most of us were just about asleep—of course, Jonathan was

wide awake—Mr. Gonzo told us that a cough nullified

any previous sign. Great, huh? Real professional. What a

time for Jonathan to use that stupid nullifier sign. That

Jonathan was really something.

The first day of JV practice was cold. It was March,

and there was still a lot of wet snow around. The fields

were wet and muddy in spots and frozen in other spots,

so our school had to rely on its vast storehouse of facilities.

We used the parking lot. Can you believe it? The stupid

high school parking lot—complete with all our favorite

teachers’ cars. They gave us rubber-coated hardballs to

 | 27

practice with, and I guessed they thought that because the

balls were rubber-coated, they wouldn’t break anything.

Well, Jonathan didn’t waste any time in putting that

theory to the test. Jonathan and I were warming up

together, and it didn’t take him long to spot the fadedpink

Dodge Dart that belonged to our English teacher.

Now, Jonathan was a pretty mischievous fellow. He loved

to cause trouble.

He went over to the Dodge Dart and said, “Hey,

doesn’t this cute little car belong to our lovely English

teacher, Miss Stewart?”

“Of course it does, you moron,” I said. “Like you

didn’t know.”

“Such an attractive vehicle, isn’t it?” Jonathan said.

“Cut the crap,” I said.

“Such a practical, functional auto. Just think. Someday

I’ll be old enough to drive one.”

“Cut it out, and let’s throw,” I said. But Jonathan

kept it up.

“Just think. Maybe someday I’ll have a car like this.”

“Cut the crap,” I said, and we finally started throwing.

But Jonathan stayed right by the car, with his back to the

driver’s side.

“Hey, Jonathan, why don’t you move away from that

stupid car? What if one of my throws is a little wild?”

“Gee, wouldn’t that be a shame? It might hit Miss

Stewart’s lovely little auto.”

“Cut it out, Jonathan,” I said, clenching my teeth in 

annoyance.

“But gee, don’t worry. I’ll protect this fine mechanical

specimen. And anyway, these balls are only rubber,”

Jonathan said.

Just then, as I was throwing one back to Jonathan, he

said, “Okay, have it your way,” and he abruptly turned and

walked away as my throw sailed right at Miss Stewart’s car.

Bam! The ball slammed right into the car door and

made the loudest noise imaginable, which echoed off the

walls of the school and reverberated throughout the whole

stupid parking lot. Everybody stopped what he was doing

and looked at me. I put my hands on my head and tried to

cover my face with my glove. One of the coaches yelled,

“Hey, buddy, will you move away from the cars or learn

how to throw a ball like a ballplayer?” Some of the other

guys laughed, and I was so darned embarrassed I wanted

to just crawl under Miss Stewart’s car. Of course, the one

who was laughing the most was Jonathan.

“You moron!” I yelled.

Jonathan regained his composure enough to say with

complete seriousness, “Nice throw.”

“You moron!” I yelled again, and I could feel my face

turning red. Then Jonathan went over to the car to inspect

the damage.

“Hey, look,” he said. “Nothing is broken. I guess that’s

why they make us use these here rubber-coated hardballs.”

As much as I was dedicated to baseball and as much

as I liked playing it, I had to admit it wasn’t meant to be

played in cold weather. After we warmed up for a while

on that first day of practice—or tried to warm up—the

coaches had us take a few laps around the parking lot.

| 29

What fun. Then, of course, they put us through the rituals

of calisthenics, which everybody hated and cheated on

anyway. We started with jumping jacks. I always noticed

that high school ballplayers tried to maintain their cool

while performing their various athletic tasks, whether

shooting a layup, catching a fly ball, throwing a football,

or whatever else. Maintaining your cool was just about as

important as doing whatever you were doing. However,

it got pretty tough to maintain your cool when doing

jumping jacks because there was no way to do a jumping

jack without looking like a complete fool. Coaches

probably felt that jumping jacks instilled a little humility

in their cool-conscious troops. It was funny to watch the

different styles of the guys doing their jumping jacks.