A personal rivalry and a dancing bear
Strong rivalries between teams are a part of what makes sports great for the competitor and fan alike. They help bring meaning and significance to games, even if it happens to be an otherwise meaningless getaway-day afternoon game on a Thursday in April. Ten or twenty years ago I would have used the Yankees-Red Sox as the perfect example of a rivalry that activates fan bases while also drawing the interest of the rest of the baseball-watching world at large. Now the prime example is the Dodgers and Padres. Until practically just a few days ago, nobody outside of San Diego gave a second thought to the swingin’ Friars, save when great hitters were discussed and Tony Gwynn (may he rest in peace) would be rightfully inserted into the conversation.
As a fan, I love a great rivalry in any sport; how it brings out another level of performance in some athletes while it completely melts others down. I get a real kick out of the gamesmanship and tactics, and sensing the tensions ebb and flow throughout, and occasionally boiling over into a true donnybrook. I don’t root for fights to break out, but when grown men care enough to detest each other from ill-will born from said rivalry, I want to see it go down!
As a player, there were a few rivalries I enjoyed being a part of. There was the one in high school with Friends Academy, a school just a few miles up the road from our campus. In fact, we were rivals across every sport, not just baseball. There was no love lost between our teams, and we didn’t like their friendly name, nor the seemingly highfalutin kids on their baseball team. I distinctly remember the dad of a kid from their team arriving at the game in a helicopter, something I would have forbidden my parents from doing if we had happened to be filthy stinking rich enough to afford a luxury Bell 206 heli to zoom around the skies of Long Island at will. Plus, our school didn’t have a helipad.
We had some memorable games against Frenemies Academy, often hotly contested close matches that came down to the very last batter. Coming away the victor felt sweet and vengeful; the losing end of things stung enough to hang a bad mood over us for a few days. But it wasn’t the rivalry with Friends that got to me as it did to some of my teammates. Some of them had battled Friends in football, soccer, and wrestling, and for them it was personal. I understood that. For me, it was seeing Huntington High School added to our schedule after I had made the varsity squad in my sophomore year. I had attended Huntington High for my freshman year, and from a baseball perspective it was the worst, which is the main reason I transferred out of there. Our JV coach that year was a college kid who was taking the helm only so he could get three credits for his phys ed degree. When I say that he knew nothing about the game I am being too kind, for this guy could not even properly throw a baseball. He had never played at any level. It said all I needed to know about what Huntington High School thought about their baseball team (the varsity coach wasn’t much better, he was just a rah-rah type football coach who applied a similarly loud yet ham-fisted approach to coaching baseball), and I found a new home at Lutheran (Luhi) the following school year.
Coach Alberda, my coach at Luhi, decided to surprise me by scheduling us to play Huntington at their field. When I found out the news it was all I could talk about at practice right up until the game. I wanted my new teammates to comprehend how much we HAD to beat those Huntington Blue Devils, with a school enrollment of 1200 versus our school’s 300 students. The outcome meant all the difference in how I would be able to walk around my hometown. Would it be with my head held high in triumph over my former teammates who played for Coach Rah Rah, or would I endure shame and witty barbs coming out on the losing end?
That season saw me settle into the number two starter role behind Mike Brown, a junior who was a skilled pitcher with a solid repertoire. Mickey B, as we had dubbed him, started the Huntington game. I didn’t get too many starts in the field that season since we were stacked with talented upperclassmen, including our shortstop David Russo, who hit over .600 and ended up playing on scholarship for Villanova University. He played great defense, so I only played a few innings at shortstop while he was the incumbent, but Coach Alberda wrote me into the lineup for this game, hitting me ninth and starting me in right field.
We went on an offensive tear that day, smashing double after double into the gaps, heading into the last inning ahead by a score of 8-2. Coach told me I was pitching the last inning, and it was over before it started. I threw about six pitches to induce a popup to first, a weak grounder to second and sealed it with a sharp grounder between the mound and first base. I sprinted off of the mound and snagged it cleanly, continuing my sprint to the first base bag, where I tagged it myself for the third and final out of the game. Coach gave me some grief for not throwing the ball to our first baseman, but I felt like I had to take it myself. Ball in glove, I gloated all the way through the post-game handshakes. I was on top of the world that we had bested my former school and teammates. Bragging rights were mine for at least a year.
The next spring, as we readied for the baseball season, Coach revealed that we would play Huntington HS at our field. I can’t be sure, but I think it was the first time that the Huntington baseball team had ever played a private school in a neighboring county. On game day they rolled in very loudly, seemingly confident that they would have our number this time around. But this was my game to pitch, and as I began warmups I went into my own quiet bubble, hearing none of their taunts, barbs, or wisecracks. Tuning out everything but the space between the mound and home plate was something that I had worked on, and it served me quite well in situations where external stimuli could become distracting. I don’t remember much detail about the game itself, the bubble being a great headspace to pitch from but terrible for recalling details. I do know that I tossed a complete game and yielded one run. And I remember that my happy mental bubble was momentarily burst at some point in the late innings. The distinct voice of our assistant coach, Todd Heubner, bellowed from our dugout, which caught everyone’s attention. Coach Heubner was a very mild-mannered young man from Wisconsin who seemed to remain calm no matter what was happening. But when he saw a Huntington player dancing around on top of our field roller in his metal cleats, looking to all like he could slip and crack his skull at any moment, Heubner let loose.
“HEY DANCING BEAR! GET! OFF! OUR! ROLLER! Yeah you, Dancing Bear. Get down! CLOWN.”
I was in the midst of facing a batter, thinking through pitch selection when Heubner’s meme-worthy roar put the dancing bear to shame. My concentration broken, I looked over to see who it was, and it turned out to be an old friend of mine who I had played with for years. Realizing who it was and seeing him turn beet red, I broke down in a fit of laughter right there on the mound. My fit of laughter quickly spread and within seconds just about everyone at the diamond, fans included were roaring at Heubner’s expertly delivered one-liner.
One last thing I remember from that day, aside from the fantastic relief of beating my hometown school, was Coach Rah Rah, who had coached me in freshman football at Huntington, congratulate me after the game and say, “You really found a home there on the mound. Impressive.” I wondered if he knew that he was the biggest reason I left to play at Luhi, but just thanked him and walked off the field with two wins against zero losses against Huntington. I can only conclude that Rah Rah didn’t like the small private school whipping his big public school team, because he declined to schedule a third installment the following year, my senior season. While this rivalry was short-lived and personal, it still meant enough that I smile when I think of those two victories over Huntington today.
“HEY DANCING BEAR! GET! OFF! OUR! ROLLER!
