Bruce and the Big Leagues
Bruce made the Little League team that year—7Ups, bright green uniforms and all. I wasn’t on a team, but I still went to most of his games. Sometimes Dad drove us, but if he couldn’t, Bruce, Mike McGinny, and I rode our bikes to the park with our gloves slung over the handlebars, just in case we got to toss the ball around before the game.
Mike and I sat in the bleachers, half-watching, half-talking. We didn't really care about Little League politics, just whether Bruce’s team won or lost.
Bruce was good—like really good. I’d seen it during tryouts when he made that ridiculous catch in left field. It was pure luck, but it got him noticed. Since then, he started switch-hitting and somehow always found a way on base. Nothing ever got past him in left field either. Eventually, the coach moved him to shortstop, and he fit right in.
I remember one day after a game, Dad clapped Bruce on the shoulder and said, “You’re something else, kid. I’m gonna call Don, see if he still knows that Dodgers scout.”
“Wait, really?” Bruce's eyes lit up.
Uncle Don was a big shot in L.A.—a union boss who seemed to know everybody. A few weeks later, Bruce came home waving a folded paper. “They want me to be a batboy!” he said, eyes wide.
“Whoa,” I said, “You’re gonna be in the dugout with the Dodgers?”
Bruce just nodded, grinning.
We thought it was the start of something big. Turns out, being a batboy wasn't what he expected.
The stadium was more than an hour away. Dad grumbled every time he had to make the drive. And Bruce came home looking more tired than excited. The first week, he was still buzzing, telling us about brushing past Sandy Koufax and picking up bats right off the field. But by the second week?
“They don’t even talk to you,” he said one night. “Some of ’em act like you’re not even there. I thought it’d be cool. It’s just... work.”
“You thought they’d be like movie players,” I said.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I thought maybe one of them would toss me a glove or something, tell me to keep practicing. They just want gum and clean helmets.”
After a month, Bruce quit. Said he wanted to play, not wait on guys who didn’t even know his name.
We didn’t talk about it much after that, but I think it stuck with him.
Would you love to hear more of these childhood misadventures?
