Randy
Remember when you asked about knowing anyone in Huntsville. Well, I happen to know a party from nearby Gurley, but his health hasn't been too good lately, so I decided not to mention him...but he's not the person I'm thinking of right now.
Just about the time that you were down there, though, I've looked in my wife's curio cabinet next to my chair a few times and spied an old baseball with a nice patina on it, signed by a bunch of kids that rests in the top of a cup. When I was stationed down in Albany, Georgia, back in '71/2, I coached a Senior Little League team there...The Hawks, and at the end of the season they gave me a baseball with their sigs on it. I've taken it out of the cabinet and looked it over a couple of times since then, too, and each time I would think of attempting to look up one of the names and send the ball, an old team picture, and old newspaper article or two to one of them.
They'd all be about 62/3 years old about now. That's been about 48 years now, and a couple of days ago, I decided to look up one of the names online. The name appeared in Huntsville, Alabama, along with the picture of a gray haired fellow with glasses...and lo and behold, it bore a very strong resemblance to the young player that I remember... and he's 62 years of age! He's a doctor now. I just wished I'd of known this while you were down there, but I didn't. Anyway...this is what's running through my mind at the moment.
BTW, how'd your trip go?
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How neat is that!
Now I have an idea as to what I'll do with my couple autographed softballs from when I coached Girls Softball 10-15 years ago!
I vote, you send him the ball and a letter!
No. I'm not Randy!
Have a good weekend my friend,
Ed
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Good on you for coaching the teams, Ed! Hope it all works out as you'd like!
I'll do what you suggest.
Will do Old Buddy! You have a nice one, too,
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I found out how the sneaky rec. centers recruit little league baseball coaches in East Tennessee back in the late 70s. At the day of sign up I was asked and I agreed to help out part time with my son's team if they needed some help on occasion. Little did I know how that was going to turn out.
So on the first practice session of the season no coaches showed up that Saturday morning but me nor did they show up at any other practices later on. No adults anywhere but me other than a few parents that dropped off their kid for practice.
I was the SUCKER that they put what they thought was going to be the worst team in the league on! They weren't as bad as the Bad News Bears and were actually better than I thought they would be the first time we played a scrimmage game. They were younger and smaller than most of the other players on the other teams in our league. But as time passed and the season wore on we practiced hard and often and they started really improving. We had worked our way into 3rd place by mid season and the boys were having fun and so was I . By the end of the season we were in 2nd place and going to get to play for the championship. We lost the championship game but we didn't get blown out. Man I was proud of those kids even though we didn't win it all.
I found one of my line ups for a pre-season scrimmage game on 5/01/79. We won 12 to 3.
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One of the best memories of my life is coaching a little league team in ‘78 and ‘79. Like smitty’s team, we were the Bad News Bears but got better as the games went by. We had one boy, Jimmy, who was slow and ran like a duck, but could hit anything thrown at him. Our third baseman could scoop up a hard grounder and throw a kid out at first like you never saw. I once loaded the whole team into the back of my pickup and went across the county to play a game. They would put me in jail for that, now.
As the years went by I would run into some of my guys. Some still called me “Coach”.
One boy worked in a federal law enforcement agency. One moved way up in the banking industry. One was a drunk and died at an early age. One was killed in on a bicycle. Another is a Holiness preacher.
Great memories.
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Nice stories, guys, thanks!
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The trip went really well, thanks for asking. My team and I had a design review with our customer who was highly impressed with our work. It is probably one of the most successful projects I have worked on.
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Mr. Perfect: 31534467064347/comments/31534478193435
The trip went really well, thanks for asking. My team and I had a design review with our customer who was highly impressed with our work. It is probably one of the most successful projects I have worked on.
A hearty congratulations to you and the team!!!
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