And I was the shy kid who did everything he could to stay invisible until graduation.
I know my story is nowhere near unique—not even rare. As my own kids were growing up, I often told my wife, “I wouldn’t want to be a kid today,” and I meant it, and mean it. When I was a kid, we played. We made up our own rules to fit the sandlot dimensions, settled our own arguments, and didn’t look over our shoulders to see the disapproving glares from adults. By the time the ’90s had rolled around, the young players lived under a microscope of adult supervision and domination, and far too often under the control of adults who cared not at all for the kid, but only for the “player,” because that player was their way of reliving the dream.
“The Coach with Big Teeth” is not a fantasy story. It is the sad reality of far too many shy and overwhelmed ten-year-olds.
— R.A. Salvatore
THE COACH WITH BIG TEETH
R.A. Salvatore
“This is what it’s about,” Coach Kaplan said to Assistant Coach Tom in a throaty voice, caught somewhere between a cheer and a growl, and loud enough so that his team could hear him clearly. “This is what makes all those hours of practice worth it!” He stood at the edge of the dugout, putting him less than a dozen feet from first base, while the Panthers’ coach, similarly positioned at the end of his own dugout, was closer to third.
Kaplan’s enthusiasm was hard to deny, even for these kids, who hadn’t taken Little League very seriously, or at least hadn’t shown enough intensity to make their coach—and in many cases their parents—happy. Especially now, when the championship was on the line and neither of the teams, as so often happened in a league where pitchers hit batters nearly as often as the strike zone, had busted out into any substantial lead.
The tension in the air had mounted all through the first three innings, shifting gradually from nervousness to sheer excitement as many of the initial jitters dissipated. This was familiar. This was what they knew. And they could do it—maybe.
Like everyone else in the park, Lenny Chiles McDermott, or LC, as he preferred, wanted to win. He knew that he wouldn’t play much of a role in any victory, just as he had pretty much been the invisible outfielder all year long, but he wanted to win, and in the event his team pulled off that miracle, LC would savor his trophy as much, if not more, than the “real” ballplayers on Tony’s Hardware Mariners. A sporting trophy, however earned, would validate LC once and for all.
Small for his age, and timid, LC had never felt at home on the team. Sure, he was a smart kid, and truly likeable, but the things he was interested in weren’t the things that made a ten-year-old popular. He read three books a week, real books, novels that rarely came in at under three hundred pages, but he couldn’t talk about those with his friends, who simply didn’t understand the value of plain old words; nor could he expect good grades to get him anything more than teasing from his fifth-grade classmates.
But a baseball trophy!
A pop-up ended the top-of-the-fourth rally that brought the Mariners back even with the Telecable Panthers. The Mariners had done well, had scored four runs, but that easy out had left runners on second and third. Coach Tom clapped his hands eagerly, and told the guys, “Hold ’em now and get ’em in the fifth!” He patted Rusty, the pitching ace, on the back as the tall youngster rushed past, heading for the mound.
Coach Kaplan slapped his hands together loudly and turned toward the bench, but kept turning, as though he didn’t want the team to see the snarl that was lifting the corner of his mouth.
LC, so often on the bench and going nowhere in a hurry, did notice the feral expression, but was hardly surprised. He noticed, too, that Ben Oliver, the kid who had choked, was quick to retrieve his glove and skip out to the field, consciously avoiding eye contact with Coach Kaplan. LC didn’t blame him; Coach Kaplan had a strange look to him when he was mad. He was a big, muscular man, an intimidating sight indeed, particularly to one of LC or Ben’s stature. His eyebrows were thick, as was his curly black hair and mustache, and his complexion was dark. The combination was ominous, especially since he always seemed to need a shave. His eyes, too, were dark, but to LC the most striking thing about the large man was his jawline, square and huge, and filled with equally huge white teeth.