Angels and Alley Cats

I suppose my mother truly does love me, and if you want to know the truth, I love her too. After several years of some serious contemplating, I know she really is not crazy either. There have been many times when she does not leave things alone, and cannot seem to allow fate or destiny to take care of certain situations. Perhaps you know a mother like this? Don’t get me wrong, my mother is not one of those over-protective moms who chases after her gawky kids with a crinkled old tissue and an inhaler while tripping over her ankle length, floral skirt which seems to scream “I have nothing better to do than to ruin my child’s life!”
No, my mom was never that awful, but there were those occasions when the phrase “mother knows best” became such a painful ring in my ears and a pain in my stomach that it was as if I had just eaten month-old tuna casserole. I don’t mean to complain. I know that I was blessed to have had a mother who was so involved in my life; it’s just that there were those times in which she was too actively involved. There is one incident that sticks out in my mind like an annoying thorn inside your sock.
I was thirteen years old, and I was prepared to begin my sixth year playing softball. It was late March, and the cold harsh winter months were finally melting away, becoming more and more like a bad dream for those of us who counted down the days until we could run freely outside again without worrying about millions of layers of clothing. The ground was soft and the air was cool but sun felt warm on my face and it promised an early summer. The trees were beginning to bud and there were a few plants and flowers that had broken through their earthy prison. I had just gotten notice of the name of the softball team that I would be playing on for the spring season. Usually there was only one team per town, but we had so many girls who thought they could play softball, that the town board had to start another team. The first team was known as the Alley Cats, and the second team was known as the Angels. That particular year I was an Angel, and I could not have been happier with the decision.
I had walked out to our shed and found my trusty old softball mitt. The brown leather felt soft and warm, and if it could have talked, would have said, “Welcome back!” Some of the edges were worn and in some areas the stitching was beginning to come loose from all the years of hard games and the hundreds of spills and slides to scoop up a grounder. I could smell the mixture of leather and dirt from the glove and when I slid my hand into it, it fit perfectly as if it was made for my hand. I held my glove in my lap while I looked over the team roster for my new team. Most of the girls on the team were good friends of mine, and good ball players as well. I could already tell that the season was going to be a good one. My friend Beth was a power hitter and had hit many homeruns in the past, Robin caught every ball which made her a great first baseman, Katelyn was the best pitcher in the whole town, and I was the fastest.
Besides the girls on the team, the coach was in our minds the best. The Angels’ coach was a well known man around our town, known as Coach Palmer. He spent many hours with his softball team, which had me believing that he really cared a lot for his the girls on his team. Several girls played softball due strictly to the fact that they heard the rumors of the coach who would take all the girls out for ice cream or pizza after every game. He would have the team of girls over his house on certain nights for “pajama and pizza night” where we would gather with sleeping bags and watch movies until 10 or 11 at night. He would also offer to work one on one with girls to help them improve their skills. Everything had looked great. And then my mom called me to come back inside.
“Clair!” she called.
“What do you want?” I answered; annoyed that she had pulled me from my trance.
“Where are you? Are you still in the shed? Come on inside. You can help me with dinner.”
By the way, if you want to ruin someone’s good mood, ask them to set the table.
I trudged into the house with my mitt and roster in my hand. The house smelled sweet of garlic, and sausage, and warm rolls. Mom was always a really great cook. She was bending over the oven taking the rolls out, and careful not to burn herself quickly put them one by one into a basket lined with a small white dishtowel. She took her attention off of the rolls, and turned towards me when I had opened the door.
“Please take your muddy shoes off outside. I spent all day cleaning this house, and scrubbing this kitchen, ---“
I interrupted the rest of her statement with the slam of the door. I had heard the same exact statement every single day since I was old enough to be able to recognize words. I now know in my older years and in my own experiences as a mother, that there was no way she ever could have cleaned and scrubbed the house every single day, unless of course she truly was superwoman.
After leaving my shoes and glove by the door, and after washing my hands of course, I had started to set the dinner plates around the table. We had a family of four, but my older brother was not going to be home that evening, so I had only set three settings around. Although the days had begun to get a little longer, it was dark by seven and Dad would be home shortly.
“Are you excited for the start of a new softball season?” Mom asked sweetly.
“Oh yeah! I can’t wait. We got the best team this year! Beth and Katelyn are on the Angels too, so--“
“You aren’t playing on the Angels this year.” She said it as if I should have already known.
“Yes I am, I got the roster right here! See, here, right there’s my name,” I pointed to my printed name on the wrinkled paper.
“You have the roster.” She corrected me. “Yes you were on the Angels. I don’t have a good feeling about your coach, and I don’t feel comfortable with you being on his team. I was talking to some of the other team moms and this new coach for the Alley Cats sounds like a really great guy. They must have sent you the old roster before I called and asked them to change it.”
My eyes began to swell with tears, and she must have noticed because she followed with, “I guess I should have asked you first.”
I didn’t let her go on any further. “Ma, you have to change it back! We had the best team! It’s not fair!” I felt the tears spill out from my eyes and roll embarrassingly down my cheeks. I wiped them away quickly before I began again. “Why are you always doing this? You’re always ruining my life! You have to change it back!”
“The deadline ended yesterday.” She stated as she wiped the streaks of mud-stained tears from my face.
I hadn’t expected her to understand. She had probably never picked up a softball or a bat or glove in all her life, except to throw mine out on the porch from time to time. My mother was the all-American mom. She always tried to put her family first. She gave up a career to stay home with her children and had a specialty in, and among other things, cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, making school lunches, and making boo boos all better. Her hair curled at her shoulders and she always complained that she never had time to make it look nice. She had a slim figure from running around and chasing after the duties of being a stay at home mom, and she maintained a healthy diet not only for herself but for her family as well. I couldn’t remember a holiday when she wasn’t busy over the stove for at least two days, cooking and preparing a homemade meal fit to feed an entire town full of kings. She also always knew exactly where her children were and what they were up to. She was a great mother, but when it came to sports and friends and other things which any pre-adolescent holds dear, she just didn’t seem to understand.
The next day I walked home slowly from school. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. When I walked up to our driveway, mom was already in the green minivan, and waiting with the engine running.
“I was just going to go look for you! Hurry up or you will be late. I have your gear in the van already. What took you so long? You aren’t still moping are you?” I might have answered her if I could, but she continued to ramble on like a motor boat in need of a good tune-up.
I sighed as I got into the front seat of the van. As we pulled up to the field, girls that I had gone to school with, but was not particularly friends with, were playing catch in the field. After my mom had driven off with a friendly and encouraging smile, my new team members gawked at me as I walked up with my sad mitt in my hands. I was less than enthused. Coach Blunt walked towards me and introduced himself. He had a cheesy grin on his face which I believed to be artificial, and I immediately did not want to like him. I knew that if I was on the Angels’ team I would have had a coach who was fun and who cared about his teammates.
I had continued to refuse to talk to my mother for the rest of the night. She had picked me up from practice, and I barely looked at her as I got into the minivan. I looked out of the window the entire ride home, and when she asked me a question I completely ignored her. I continued this form of punishment all through dinner as well. It wasn’t until before I went to bed that she finally questioned my silence.
“You have been awfully quiet tonight. Did something happen at school today?”
I ignored her obnoxious and naïve question. I might have replied, “Of course Mom…it was school. School is the detriment in a person’s life, and is by no means their parents,” but she probably would have believed it to be the truth, and would have taken it as a compliment.
I walked past her without even looking at her. If I looked at her, her angry glare might scare me out of my act of stubbornness, so I quickly brushed past her without saying a word and went to my bedroom. I heard her demand that I come out and explain to her what the problem was, and I could picture her out in the kitchen with stains from cooking on her apron, hands defiantly on her hips, and a frustrated facial expression.

Our first game of the season was in two days and as fate would have it, was being played against the Angels team. Considering it was the beginning of the season, my team was pretty good however I knew we were not good enough to beat the Angels. At the end of practice, Coach had our team huddle together while he discussed the positions we each had to play for our first game, but I had not been listening. All I could think about was how embarrassed I would be. All of my friends on the other team had become my rivals. I knew they were going to laugh at me, and never let me forget how poorly some hit on our team, or how funny we looked trying to catch fly balls which never seemed to be caught. I knew they would point and laugh because I used to be one of them. I wished so badly now that I could turn back time and stop the laughter and the mockery of other less fortunate teams. Perhaps then they would have had mercy on me in the upcoming game. I was more furious with my mother at that point than at any other time.

The next day I arrived at the field to find my team alone standing around in a huddle, and looking dazed. As I ran up to my team with my mitt and my lucky bat in hand, the coach announced that because the other team was cut that we would simply have a short practice in place of the game for the afternoon.
What did he mean “cut”? My mind raced. Why weren’t we having a game?
After spending the previous night and the past morning coming up with nasty and catchy comebacks to spew off at the other team, I wasn’t going to settle for a lack of answers. As the rest of my team started for the field to practice, I ran up to my coach and began to ask questions.
“Hey coach!! What d’ya mean the Angels got cut? ”
“They don’t have a coach anymore. You can’t have a team without a coach.”
“What happened to their old coach?”
He turned and said in a stern tone, “It’s really not a subject that is up for discussion.” Then he smiled and stated, “Let’s go practice, eh?”
I didn’t ask any more questions after that, although I still had my curiosities, and many rumors began to spread. Regardless, I didn’t have to hear from Robin, or Beth about how bad our team was, and to be quite honest we actually did pretty well throughout the season. We won all but 4 of our games, and I think that even I improved a little that season. I really ended up appreciating my teammates, and by the end of the season I knew I was actually going to miss them. I was actually happy that I ended up on this particular team, and although I would never admit that to my mom, I figured that it would be alright to forgive her.
At first I had no interest in giving Coach Blunt any respect, and I believed he felt the same. During one of the first practices I stole and slid into the bases repeatedly after he had said that he wanted us to run through the bases. He apparently was just as stubborn as I was, and in turn made me run around the bases a few times while the team watched. We continued to have these battles as I would look for ways to make his job harder, and he in turn made me practice harder. As the season continued however, I began to like Coach Blunt. He made us run and he made us work, and we became better because of it. I remember one occasion in which I kept striking out during one game. I was near tears because it was the bottom of the ninth. I knew the fate of the game was in my hands and so far I had not had much luck. Before I went up to bat, Coach Blunt pulled me aside and told me to simply pretend it was nothing more than another practice. After all due to my rebellion I had a lot of practice hitting balls. I hit a double after that. I’ll never forget how excited I was when I ran full speed to the second base, and I turned and looked at the coach who gave me a smile and a thumbs-up.
Regardless of my initial stubbornness, Coach Blunt was really a great coach. We learned a lot from him and our teammates created good bonds and friendships amongst each other. Throughout the first few practices, we had already begun to develop a family out of our small team. We practiced hard, and played harder, and every individual on the team put forth a great amount of effort. We all worked hard, and we appreciated the fruits of our efforts.
I could remember how most of the mothers, mine included, did not seem to like the Coach Palmer as much as we all did. I didn’t really understand at the time why they wouldn’t like him, however not every one of the girls liked the coach. I remember one girl in particular, Jennie, who was much more physically developed than the rest of us girls at that early age. I remember I was jealous of her curvy body. One day after practice during the prior year, Coach asked her to stay after everyone else left in order to work on her swinging. The next day Jennie did not show up to practice, nor did she show up for the rest of the season. I heard rumors that her parents made her quit the team due to the fact that her grades were suffering, and many other rumors spread too.
That year many rumors spread as to what happened to the team, to Jennie, and to the coach. Some kids said Jennie was his long lost daughter, while others claimed that he was actually part of the CIA and had to escape to some lost island immediately for protection. More and more rumors spread, although as the years continued the rumors eventually died out. Still, most didn’t want to believe the truth that such a nice guy could be capable of the crimes he was convicted of. After a while the issue was dropped completely and people moved on with their lives. There were boyfriends, proms, and cars to worry about, and that one softball season was forgotten about. Several days ago however, during my weekly conversation with my mom, the topic was brought up after many years of being stifled.
We began the conversation with our hellos and she inquired about my past week.
“Oh, it was busy.” I held the phone between my cheek and shoulder in order to free my hands for washing dishes. “The kids had the flu, and Rick had to work late all this week to finish a project,” I sighed. Rick was my husband whom I was married to for 8 years already.
“Well why on earth didn’t you call? You know, I could have made soup…have they been eating? And…”
“No mom,” I cut her off. “I find joy in starving my children.” I didn’t feel like listening to what I should have done.
At that point, I looked at my own children watching the baseball game on our small television screen in the living room. Both of them, Emma and Michael, were sitting together. They were twins and were inseparable and had been since they were born 6 years ago. I smiled not only at the fact that they were close, but because they were watching baseball, something both my husband and I greatly enjoyed. My vision drifted to the TV screen where there was a close up of the pitcher. He reached down and scooped some dirt into his hand and crumbled it until it fell back to the earth. He then wiped the dirty hand on his white game pants, leaving behind a light brown smudge. Seeing the smudge on his pants reminded me of the stains I would come home with after a game of softball when I was younger.
The winning team was up by 6 runs, and it occurred to me that they were doing much better this year. A year ago they lost their coach due to illegal distributions of steroids, and the team fell apart and had ended the season with many more losses than wins. My thoughts then turned to the last year I played on the Alley Cats and how the Angels had lost their coach, and I brought it up in the conversation with my mom.
“Hey mom, you remember that year I played softball on the Alley Cats team?” I inquired.
“Oh let me see…sure, uh huh. You seemed to have a lot of fun that year. I’m glad you didn’t end up on that other team.
“What ever happened to Larry Palmer?” I asked.
“You never knew? Many parents felt uncomfortable with him to begin with, but after he was convicted of molesting that poor girl…” her voice began to drift, whether in dismay or loss of memory I was unsure. “Anyway, he pleaded not guilty in court but there was too much evidence against him. I don’t know how he thought he was going to get away with it. Out of respect for that poor girl and the rest of the girls on the team they decided not to start another softball team that season. Oh, remind me to give you a recipe for this great…..”
She continued to ramble on but my mind had drifted. Although many years had gone by since I had played that season, I never understood how my inattentive mother knew enough to take me off of the Angels’ team. While I had believed that softball was something she knew nothing about, she somehow knew better than I what was best for me. At that point, I looked back to my own children whose faces were only inches away from the television screen. Cutting of my mom mid-conversation I yelled at them to back away from the TV screen; that they were going to ruin their eyes if they sat too close. My mom began to laugh on the other end of the line and exclaimed,
“Goodness, you sound just like your mother!”