For thirteen- and fourteen-year-old kids, playing baseball in the summertime is supposed to be fun. The Electric Company team was coached by Bill Stewart, who had been coaching for what seemed like forever.  (I think he was coaching when I played at that age.)  He wasn’t exactly a friendly old coot, but he knew his baseball and I took particular pride in beating his teams.

One evening when we were playing them, with his team in the field, his left fielder dropped an easy fly ball.  Bill Stewart was really upset.  He called timeout and took the left fielder out of the game.  The poor kid looked so embarrassed, he was on the verge of crying.  At that moment I wondered if he ever wanted to play baseball again.  He’s 13- or 14-years-old, in front of his teammates, friends, and family.  He makes an error and is embarrassed enough by that.  Then his coach, instead of encouraging him, makes it ten times worse by pulling him out of the game.

After the game, which we won, some of the players from the Electric Company came over to me and said they wished they played for my team because it looked like we had fun when we played.