Warren Zevon
Werewolves of Woodinville
Jim, Glen, Brett and me. That translated into TC’s dad, Griff’s dad, Clark’s dad, and Shea’s dad. We sat together prepping and pumping ourselves up for another home game. The four of us each had his little slice of turf in the tight 2-person score booth behind home plate at the Woodinville High School baseball field. It was cramped, but we were a team. Today was the last home game of the regular season of our sons’ senior baseball year.
Each of us dads had his particular function in the booth. Brett had put together the music tapes, so he was in charge of making sure that the right song was played at the right time. Somehow, Werewolves of London seemed to play during every warmup. And yes, back in the day in the booth, we still used cassette tapes.
Glen kept the score board updated. All he had to do was hit keys to add balls and strikes, runs, and keep fans updated on which inning we were in. It may sound like a pretty straightforward task, and it should have been. But, back in the day, the existing technology coupled with the ancient wiring at the field made that about the most challenging part of our collective work.
Jim talked. He talked about his son; he talked about the other team, about calling pitches, about the weather, about the Boston Red Sox. Jim was their #1 West Coast fan. #1 fan in the country! Jim talked.
I kept the score book, which meant keeping track of at bats, pitches and pitch counts, runs, hits, errors. I also announced the game and called plays. I was The Voice of the Falcons.
Each of us knew the other guys’ jobs, but it played out better when the tasks were divvied up. In our other, regular lives, each of us did very different things. Glen was a very successful business owner in the tech industry. Brett was a political lobbyist. Jim was in corporate sales. I was in education. We had come to Washington from all across the country over the years, had different political views, and different life experiences. But there in the little booth, we were a team.
This was one of those days when the electrical connection between the score booth and the score board out in center field was acting up. Luckily, Glen had gotten to the field early enough to play around with the system. After checking everything within the booth, he went around the ballpark and climbed up onto the narrow ledge in front of the score board. Sure enough, he found the problem. But once that was fixed and lights lit, he also saw that there were a few light bulbs which had burned out. Not surprisingly, he had a few spares with him, and in no time, all the lights were on and the score board was ready for the game.
Along with everything else which kept Brett busy, he was also the president of the Falcons Boosters’ Association. Lots of fundraising! One of the big-ticket items on his Boosters’ to-do list was getting the electrical system at the ballpark fixed.
By that time Glen had fixed the scoreboard, Brett and I were in the booth. Brett was busy loading up the right songs for the Falcons’, our boys’, pre-game warmups. By the time Glen got back from the outfield, the warmup tape was blasting across the field. That was always fun. Before each season started, each player on the team was asked to select a couple of his favorite songs for the warmup tape. There was some guidance, of course, and all the songs were subject to review and exclusion. Our coach, Coach Agnew, was particularly sensitive about no offensive lyrics coming through his sound system. The entire warmup tape would have run for about an hour and a half without a repeat – if we had that much time.
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
The day was also Senior Day, the game where our graduating team members were individually called out and recognized before the start of the game. The boys lined up on the 1st base line outside their home dugout as their names were called, starting players first, then the rest of the seniors. All received a standing ovation. That was more than appropriate as they had been playing together for years, and had become an amazing and successful team.
After the seniors, the rest of the home team and the visiting starters lined up along their 1st and 3rd base lines and were introduced. Since I knew all of our boys, I had no trouble with names. That was not always the case with the visitors. I tried to do a name check with the visiting coach prior to the game – especially when I saw names I handwriting I couldn’t read or some potential pronunciation challenges in the line-ups. It didn’t always work. Regardless, I introduced each player, his position and batting order.
With all the boys lined up along the baselines, it was time for the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem. We had a beautiful version on tape. More than one, in fact. There was the instrumental version, and two or three sung versions. Today Brett played one of the sung renditions. In all honesty, I do not remember who sang it, but it was a perfect selection. Everyone stood, hand over heart, and many in the stands sang along.
It was time to, “Play ball!” We headed into the top of the 1st inning.
Our boys took the field, hustling out of their 1st base side dugout. The warm-up music was over; the anthem had been sung. The top of the 1st was about to start. Brett kicked in another taped play list. Music was a big part of the game at our field. Along with the team warm-up music, each player in the lineup had his particular, personally-chosen walk-up song. Song selection was both fun and arduous. The walk-up reflected that player’s personality, his taste in music, and it was played every time he walked up to the plate for his at-bat. If he did something especially noteworthy at the plate or on the field, the song was played again. All walk-up selections had to have been OK-ed by Coach Agnew, of course.
Brett’s filler song faded out as the pitcher’s walk-on song came rolling across the field. At this level of play, most pitchers were not POs, pitchers-only. However, they didn’t get a chance to bat if they were throwing that day. American League rules. The walk-on was the song which the pitcher had chosen for those few seconds when he would walk toward the mound and start his warmups with the catcher. Today’s pitcher was Marty, aka Sticks. He was called Sticks both for his long lanky frame and for the fact that he wore #11 on his uniform. I have no idea what Marty’s walk on was.
As the team took its place on the field and as the visiting team lined up to bat, my job kicked in. I started to call the game. The four of us had been warned by Coach Agnew, as usual, to keep it friendly and clean. For the most part, it was. We were dads, and it was natural to get excited by a great play or a productive at-bat. Every now and then, someone might forget to turn the mic off between calls, and sometimes something might … slip through. Our fans usually loved it when that happened!
Outside the announcer’s booth, it was busy, too. The booth, itself, had been carved out of the space beneath the bleachers between the home and the visitor sides of the field. It was slightly below ground level making our view of home plate about the same as the catcher’s. We entered from an outside door on the side.
Behind the booth, in a separate, larger space built under the bleachers was the snack shack. Run by the team moms, it was well-managed by Brett’s wife, Marda, and well stocked with a really wide variety of candies, hot and cold drinks, hotdogs, hamburgers and other treats popular with kids and parents. It was a money maker, to be sure.
Today was Senior Day, and we expected a lot of extra spectators. Therefore, today’s selections were even bigger and broader than usual! A couple parents were pretty steady volunteers, but almost all the team moms and dads took their turn working the shack over the course of the season. Folks couldn’t see the game from the front of the shack, nor could they hear the announcer, but they did love to congregate and catch up with one another…until their son was up to bat or making a play on the field.
After one game, my wife told me that a woman, a stranger to the group, asked who “that announcer” was. She said that he had such a deep sexy voice that she wanted to know what he looked like. Fortunately, she missed him.
Most of the boys on the team had gone to school together and played with or against one another, in one sport or another, since elementary school. Most of the boys we knew played one or two sports. Over time, we had gotten to know them and their families quite well. There was always lots of time waiting around after practice, lots of team parties, and lots of road trips. Over time, too, there had been lots of parent parties.
Knowing everyone had not always been the case, though. I remember a few years earlier when Shea had been in 7th grade. He came to me one day and said, “Dad, there’s this kid at school who is a pain.” That was not like my son. “I don’t want to have to talk with him, but I feel guilty if I don’t.
He always comes up and butts into our conversations when I’m talking to the guys. He doesn’t… he doesn’t just wait around to talk – to me or to anybody. He just starts talking! Mainly to me. He mainly just wants to talk to me!”
I suggested that stounded like the kid needed a friend.
“ I really don’t want to be mean to him – but I ….but he…. What am I going to do, Dad?”
“Dude, you are The Man,” I said. “You have more best friends than anybody I’ve ever seen before. Here’s a kid with maybe no friends. Just be nice to him. Talk to him sometimes. I know you. Just be nice to him.”
And so he did. Shea and the kid became friends, and as a result, he soon became friends with everyone else. Although he didn’t play baseball the rest of the guys took him in and accepted him as one of them. Soon, he became the Team Manager for baseball and for any and every team he could squeeze into his schedule and his capabilities. His interpersonal insights became invaluable. At games, he always took time to come over to say hello to me. At every game, he’d come my way in the booth, and we’d have a little conversation. Then he’d find his favorite – lucky – spot and watch the game.
Parents and family friends sat in the bleachers. Each person had his or her favorite, lucky spot. If I wasn’t calling a game, I sat at the top of the bleachers, in the middle. It gave me a good view of the field and generated great mojo. TC’s mom, Karilee, stood near one of the light poles along the cyclone fence. It was her lucky spot. Sometimes, one parent or another would move a few inches to the right or left, or up or down one row. All doing his or her part to bring on good luck for that game.
Other guys who played other sports tended to like to sit on top of the knoll behind the bleachers. There the football, basketball, soccer and lacrosse players gathered to cheer on their own boys of summer. Many of them had played baseball in Little League days, but with the commitments of each individual sport, it was a challenge to play more than one. Sometimes, it worked out with football, but even that was tough.
The guys on the knoll knew the baseball team all too well. Sometimes, they had their girlfriends join them at the games. Lucky for most of the adults that they couldn’t hear all that was said from the hilltop. A lot of it was incredibly funny, but it would never pass the coach’s litmus test.
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Today’s game had a lot of additional moving parts. Along with the regular 7 innings of high school baseball, it was, as noted, Senior Day. The guys on the knoll dressed in their Shreds. Shea’s older brother and sister also got to come to this game. There was also the potential for a weather delay.
And there was. The weather delay was, fortunately, short lived. Rain had been predicted, but not a thunderstorm. Between the 2nd and 3rd inning, it looked like the sky might just totally open up. The rule said that if lightning were spotted during a game, there was a mandatory 30-minute delay after the last flash was seen. The clouds became dark and heavy. The smell of ozone was in the air. The umpire halted the game to assess the weather. Somehow, though, the lightning never materialized, and although the sky was still heavy, the game went on. The hope was that they’d finish at least 4 innings – and we’d be up – to make it an official game.
The boys on the knoll were happy about that. They’d used Senior Day as an excuse to haul out their shreds, wild and crazy “Front Line” school colored costumes and makeup which senior boys wore to cheer on football games in the fall. Most of the seniors on the baseball team were part of the Front Line, and they got a kick out of seeing their classmates all decked out. No lightning and no rain meant dry shreds – and no runny makeup.
After all the years the boys had been in school and playing together, most families knew each other pretty well. Most knew that our son had older siblings, but not all. Some of those who knew had never actually met Shea’s older brother and sister. Both were much older, out of school and living and working in other places around the country. As it was Senior Day, they’d both made it home for the game. That was great fun, but also a huge surprise to those who had thought Shea was an only child!
The game went on despite the weather. Shea, Beau and Max turned several of their famous 4-6-3 double plays. TC had some amazing catches in center. Shea went 3-4 at the plate with 2 RBIs. After the top of the 7th, we were ahead 6-3. That made it official. Our boys had won, and had finished the season with a resoundingly strong W-L record.
All that was left was the Team Party.
And so it went. Our time in the booth was coming to an end. Jim, Glen, Brett and I had done our jobs together for three seasons. Music had played. Walk ups had changed. New ones had come to us in short order in the booth. Glen had kept the lights and scoreboard working. The scorebook had been kept, and games announced. A tradition had come to an end.
Baseball is a spring sport. The season ends close to graduation time. After graduation, almost every member of the team headed off to college. Many played ball – D-1, D-2; some played just for the joy of the game. After all the years have passed, the boys of on the team and those on the knoll still get together. They gather from all over the country for one thing or another – fantasy football drafts, bachelor parties, guys’ get-away weekends…. Nowadays, it’s not unusual for some of them to bring wives or girlfriends. And even today, their families get together for parties and celebrations.
We no longer sit in a little booth with our jobs to do. Nowadays, we are more likely to be sitting around fire pits, or on decks having a few beers – now, often with the boys – talking. Like Jim used to do. Once in a while, a song might come on the radio which has been on somebody’s play list.
“Hey, didn’t that used to be Griff’s walk up?” some old dad might ask.
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo…
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