The plastic baseball hit me dead center in the forehead and jolted me awake from an early morning sleep on a couch at my sister’s place.
“Ball … ball,” said my baby nephew, Griffin, as he retrieved the ball off the floor and threw it at my face again during a 7 a.m. wake-up call. We proceeded to play catch, sort of, with the toddler catching the ball or running after it as it rolled under a table until my sister, Laura Puvel, woke up and fixed breakfast.
The early memory of Griffy or Griff, as the family calls him, always stuck with me through the years as we heard of his ongoing passion for sports that included playing baseball and football.
That passion provided a lot of fun for our family last week when Griff and his baseball team from Thurmont, Md., made it to the Mid-Atlantic regional competition for the Little League World Series in Bristol, Conn. The games were televised on ESPN and aired brief introductions from each of the players and coaches. It was kind of surreal seeing our tall, young nephew introduce himself on national television. Topping off the enjoyment was seeing a televised message from Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter who congratulated the boys for their accomplishments.
We later found out that most of our family were tuning in to watch. A sister in California, who isn’t a big sports fan and doesn’t have ESPN, had another sister Skype the games live from a computer placed in front of a television on the East Coast. Many of us wore light blue rubber wristbands, the team’s color, that carried the team’s logo and hashtag #smalltownbigdreams.
If my relatives were like me, there was plenty of yelling, clapping and screaming in front of the television sets.
The three games Thurmont competed in at the regional, regional semi-final and region final levels were nail-biters for family members as well as the Thurmont community, my sister tells me.
While the end result was Griff’s team got knocked out at the regional championship against the Jackson, N.J. team, and had to go home, none of them would have traded the experience of competing at that level. By the way, the New Jersey team went on to Williamsport, where they were defeated Thursday by the New England champs from Fairfield, Conn. The games will continue this upcoming week as kids from all over the country and planet continue competing on the Williamsport world stage to see who will become the Little League World Series champions.
The players, families and their communities who got a taste of the World Series action, even at the regional levels, will likely never forget the experience.
For the little town of Thurmont, which has a population of just over 6,000 and is five miles from Camp David, the team’s accomplishment of making it to Bristol came after a few years of preparation. In addition to their Little League practices and competition, which netted them the Maryland state championship this year, the team also participated in some travel league games.
While at Bristol, the team stayed in a dorm located in a training complex with all expenses paid through the Little League World Series organization. The communities of Thurmont and nearby Frederick also held fundraisers or donated to help the parents with travel and lodging expenses.
The boys stayed in a dorm at a training complex in Bristol, and for the most part had very little contact with their parents. A dorm “aunt” supervised the boys and got on them about keeping their beds made and rooms neat and clean. They were also taken on short outings in the area during their downtime.
When they returned home, the boys were taken through town on new trucks provided by a car dealership in the community.
“Everybody lined up on the street (and waved at the team), the mayor put it together,” my sister remarked. “Afterward they had pizza, cake and ice cream. They also had the (county) commissioners attend and the Frederick City Council came out. That’s because we’ve gone further than any Thurmont team in history.”
If there is a message here, it should be that children’s participation in sports, or any other activity that challenges them physically and mentally, is good for their development and a joy for everyone around them.
Just ask the residents of Thurmont — or members of my family.
