Thread by @joe_rigney

I don’t normally post family stuff on Twitter, but I thought I’d make an exception for a great little story that some of you may enjoy. Anyone who knows me knows I love baseball. I coach both of my older sons here in the Twin Cities. This is a story about my oldest son’s team.

He plays for the 11AAA Minneapolis Millers (my middle son plays for the 10AAA Millers). (Fun fact: my grandfather managed the Minneapolis Millers minor league team in 1955 before being called up to manage the NY Giants in 1956). Here’s a pic of him in a Millers uniform.

By all accounts, the 11AAA Millers are a mediocre travel ball team. We’re a city team with 12 goofy kids with all kinds of personality. (Early in the season one kid brought a baby Yoda doll to the game and called him Rally Yoda.)

As coaches, we jokingly referred to ourselves as the Mighty Ducks of Baseball (complete with a head coach who was raised as a "cake-eater" in the suburb of Edina). In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, our record had been 2-12.

Coming into the final week of this season, we were a more respectable 11-19. We had won one tiny tournament (only 4 teams in it) which earned us a bid to the two end-of-season state tournaments. We were hoping for some Mighty Ducks of Baseball magic. Quack, Quack.

But in the first state tournament, we went 0-3 in pool play & were knocked out. For you stat junkies, we had a team batting average of .155 in that tournament. We had the same number of hits as errors in the tournament (12). In our last game, he only had one hit & were shut-out.

It was rough—the kids went up to bat trying not to strike out (which is not the same thing as trying to get a hit). Shoulders sagged when they made an error. Pressure, pressure, and more pressure. It was a dismal showing, even for our mediocre team.

After that game, while the coaches commiserated, the kids found a green playground ball, threw their hats down as bases, & proceeded to play their own version of “baseball.”

They swung hard, flew around the bases, dove for catches. They were playing loose & laughing & having a big time. You know, as though baseball was fun. “Where were these kids all weekend?” we wondered.

So we decided to mix things up. No more traditional pre-game warm-up. No more hitting progression or batting cage or hitting hard ground balls.

Instead, we had the kids do a Willie Mays drill: The kid takes off running like a wide receiver in football & a coach throws a pop fly over his shoulder that he tries to snag like Willie in the famous Catch of the 1954 World Series.

(Fun side note: during the season our head coach was reading a biography of Willie Mays and came across this fun little story:

After the Willie Mays drill, the kids would play catch for a few minutes to loosen up their arms. Then we had them play a 6-on-6 game of wiffle ball for a half hour. Then, game time.

What happened next is the stuff of Hollywood.

Our next game was the semi-finals of the consolation bracket of the league playoffs (we didn't make the Tier 1 bracket). We played a team that had beaten us 5 of 6 times that year.
But we had Willie Mays and wiffle-ball warmup. We beat them 10-6.

On to the consolation finals. Willie Mays and wiffle-ball warm-up. We win 14-4. Our kids are absolutely mashing the ball. We finally started living up to our team chant:
I say, Orange, you say Crush.
Orange!
Crush!
Orange!
Crush!
Orange!
Crush.
Millers on 3. 1-2-3 Millers!

We were ending on a high note: Champions of the Tier 2 Consolation Bracket. Not bad for the Mighty Ducks of Baseball. All we had left was the last state tournament.

32 teams, 8 pools of 4 teams, only the top team in each pool makes it to the championship bracket.

Our goal was to win one game. But Willie and wiffle ball had other plans.

We were seeded 26 out of 32 teams. Our first game was against the No. 7 seed. Willie Mays and wiffle ball warm-up. We put up 7 runs in the second inning and win the game 9-3. Orange Crush indeed.

Next game against the No. 10 seed. Willie Mays and Wiffle Ball warmup. Then 13 hits, no errors later, we win 10-0. And just like that, we’ve secured the top spot in our pool. Our 3rd game doesn’t even matter.

(We did do Willie and Wiffle Ball for the 3rd game, but we also tried to conserve some pitching for bracket play (kids only get 110 pitches for the whole tournament), and lost the game 5-1. No big deal. Orange Crush is in the Elite 8.)

Quarterfinals game against the No. 15 seed. They had beaten us in the previous state tournament.
Willie and Wiffle Ball Warmup, then 12 hits, and a 7-2 win.
Orange Crush to the semi-finals.

Now it gets really tough. Playing the No. 3 seed in the state. Season record: 28-5-1. 1st inning, their third hitter launches a homer over the CF fence.
But we did Willie Mays & Wiffle Ball Warm-up. 11 hits later, Orange Crush wins 8-4 & it’s on to the state championship game.

We’re playing the No. 9 seed, but that’s an understatement. They had placed 2nd in the other state tournament. 32-9 on the season. A really good baseball team.

(Side note: We had played them once before this year, early in the season, in that game, they were winning 9-0 going into the last inning. They started playing “Another One Bites the Dust” on a big speaker. You get the idea.

In that game, we used copious amounts of rally licorice (I told you we were a goofy team) and scored 9 runs in the 6th to tie it, and then won the game in extra innings. It was the high point of our season. Until now.)

So we knew they wanted revenge. But we had Willie & Wiffle Ball Warm-up.
We come out swinging & go up 5-0 in the 1st.
They battle back & tie the game in the 2nd.
We get 2 more in the top of the 3rd.
They answer with 2 in the bottom.

We get 2 in the top of the 4th & hold them, and we’re up 9-7 going into the top of the 5th.

Then it gets surreal.

We load the bases in the top of the 5th. My son comes up to bat. He works the count to 3-2.
Again, state championship game, bases loaded, 3-2 count.
And then this happens.

His first ever home run—a grand slam on a 3-2 count in the championship game. Literally every kids dream
(Did I mention Mighty Ducks of Baseball?).

We get two more runs to go up 15-7. My son then pitches the final two innings of the game, and it ends like this (with a little soundtrack help from my wife and Celine).

Orange Crush wins 15-8.
In the final 8 games of Willie & Wiffle Ball Warm-up, our team batting average was .355. We had 81 hits, scored 74 runs, had 14 doubles, & 2 home runs (our only two ever).

We made diving catches, fielded hard ground balls, and pitched our hearts out.
The mediocre Mighty Ducks of Baseball.

A few hours after we won, the families gathered at a local park for an end of season cookout. Brats, kebabs, potato salad, & all the Orange Crush the kids could drink.

The parents sat around picnic tables reminiscing about the improbable season, the amazing plays, the hilarious tales from the dugout. Touching tributes were made to coaches, and we all ate and drank and laughed and set down stones of remembrance.

And the kids? They played wiffle ball.

The End.

Post-script: Orange Crush

Post-script 2: Wiffle Ball Warm-up

Post script 3: More Wiffle Ball Warm-up

Post-script 4: Grand Slam Ball

Appendix A: Orange Crush: Tales From the Dugout
Part 1: Bagpipes

https://twitter.com/joe_rigney/status/1418334211400941580?s=20