Playing little league baseball wasn't a lot of fun for me. I was usually the best player on my teams in soccer and basketball, I was a good runner in track, but in baseball, I rode the bench most of the time. It was too slow paced for me. I had good foot speed, but rarely got to show it as I was a terrible batter (I now realize it was probably because I needed glasses, but at the time, we didn't know that). It was a boring sport. In fact, I was never even sure why I was there other than everyone my age seemingly played little league baseball and if they were playing, I wanted to play, too. The league was for 9 and 10 year olds. I was 9 and fairly undersized. There were 10 year old who got their growth spurts early and seemed like towering men compared to us runts who were still waiting to catch up in size. One of those 10 year olds was Corky. Corky was far sighted wearing Coke bottle glasses, buck toothed, and from Kentucky. Wearing a long braided rat tail hairstyle and being a very loud person he was already intimidating as he was taller and powerfully built for a kid. His side armed fastball gave the illusion every pitch was aimed at your head. He threw hard and wild. I really didn't want to bat with Corky on the mound.
On game day, Corky was pitching and I was happy to find out I would not be a starter for that game. There was a rule every player had to play at least one inning and with Corky on the mound, that meant I'd only have to bat against him once. This was a good deal for me. With those Coke bottle glasses and blazing delivery, I didn't think he could even tell where the ball was going. The game ended up being a pitcher's duel with my team's pitcher, Brian, tossing the game of his life, and Corky displaying control of the plate. The last time we faced Corky, he was all over the place, hitting batters, the backstop, the umpire, everything but the plate. This time, he was tossing gems. In the 6th inning, the coach had to put me in. I didn't want to go. Corky was on fire and I hated striking out (which I did all the time). I reluctantly step to the on deck circle waiting for my turn and BLAM! Corky beans the guy in front of me with a high fastball. Tagged him right on the earpiece of his helmet.
After a few tense moments, the batter was OK and took his base. I'm up next. I was already scared of Corky, but now I was really scared. My knees were shaking. I could barely hold the bat. Corky winds up and delivers and the pitch buzzes my head. I look back at him and he's laughing. The catcher then makes a crack about me calling me a pussy and now I'm mad. Corky throws the next pitch over the middle of the plate and I make contact, but rather than run to the base, I turn and kick the catcher in the facemask and send Corky an obscene jesture and may have thrown in a few choice swear words, at age 9, I was well ahead of the curve on cursing. Everything I knew about swearing, I learned from 2 Live Crew songs. Fortunately for me, the umpire steps in and kicks me out of the game before I could get the crap kicked out of me by Corky and the catcher. My team ended up losing as a result (had I not stopped to taunt Corky and kick the catcher in the face, we would have had the tying and winning runs on base with no outs). I received several stern lectures from the coach and never played much after that. A year later, me and Corky were attending the same school. By that time, I'd gotten my much needed growth spurt and we were about the same size which was a good thing, because he still wanted a piece of me.
I never did see that catcher again, though.
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