Little League memories will last a lifetime

It was the great if sometimes misunderstood Yogi Berra who famously once said “Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps parents off the streets.”

His is the first quote about Little League on BrainyQuote.com.

There are multiple pages of Little League quotes on that site. Some are more pithy than others. Not all are from excellent catchers who sometimes got their wires crossed.

John Cena, Skeet Ulrich, James Cameron, Neil Diamond, Dennis Quaid, Haley Barbour, Jonah Hill, Billy Baldwin. Two Kings (Billie Jean and Larry) and a president (Obama). When it comes to Little League baseball, people from all stations of life have something to say or an anecdote to share.

When the Mountain Ridge kids were making memories in Pennsylvania, how many of us watching on TV were recalling our own Little League memories?

I remember receiving a special cap when I made the Little League all-stars: It was white with a green bill, with green piping on the crown. I also remember the only time I got on the field was to warm up our pitcher after our catcher made the last out.

My team didn’t go quite as far as the Mountain Ridge kids; we lost our first game in the district round.

I remember the score — we lost 4-0 to these farm kids from Dyer, Ind. I still was proud of that cap. I would wear it only on special occasions, because I didn’t want to get it dirty. Most of the special occasions involved 12-year-old girls I wanted to impress.

I remember my dad taking my brother and me to Gary, Ind., to watch this big kid named Lloyd McClendon play Little League baseball. This was the same team the announcers at this year’s World Series kept talking about, one of the only teams made up entirely of African-American kids to make it to Williamsport.

McClendon seemed huge compared to the other 12-year-olds. He hit a home run that landed somewhere in the vicinity of Michigan City.

I also remember that almost everybody in the crowd, which was huge, was African-American, too.

It didn’t matter to me and my brother. It didn’t matter to my dad, which was a little surprising now that I think about it. Because this would have been 1971, a difficult time in the neighborhoods near where I grew up. Tensions were higher then.

This is another great thing about Little League baseball. It can be a great unifier.

That team from Chicago, the one that beat the Mountain Ridge kids the second time they played, is based at Jackie Robinson Park on the gritty South Side, on Morgan Street between 106th and 107th Street. The Little League ballpark where I played was on 119th.

The two ballparks are 9.9 miles apart. Or worlds apart, depending on one’s point of view.

But I’ve read the ballpark where the Chicago kids from the South Side play is pretty nice, with an electric scoreboard that works, and that the neighborhood surrounding it is peaceful and manicured.

So now I think I will remember those neighborhoods not so much for once having pedaled through them at a high rate of speed on my bicycle, but for something else. Something better.

I will remember the kids who played baseball there (especially the little center fielder with the cherub cheeks), just as I remember the monstrous home run that big Lloyd McClendon, who would play and manage in the big leagues, hit in Gary, Ind.

And years from now, should I live that long, whenever I am driving on what is now the edge of town, should I drive that long, I will notice shadows cast by the Centennial Hills Hospital and Medical Center.

I will ask those with whom I’m riding if they are familiar with Austin Kryszczuk, who batted .319 for the Orioles or the Pirates last season.

They’ll say sure.

And I’ll say there’s a ballpark over there, over by those shadows, where Austin Kryszczuk played when he was in Little League, when he and his buddies nearly won it all in Williamsport one year, providing those of us who lived here with a mighty thrill.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.