Remember those high school basketball games when the score got so lopsided that the coach felt compelled to put the little fat benchwarmer in, the one who—to the hoots of the fans—would play down the clock through garbage time? I was that hefty benchie!
We’re playing Westminster, Maryland at home and it’s a basketball pride win for us. They are a much bigger school, located in the County Seat, have a football program (we did not) and of course I haven’t seen action all year and so there’s no reason to believe I’ll be playing, even in a mop up, against these guys.
Okay, I’m thirteen, the backup catcher for the New Windsor, Maryland, Babe Ruth League team. Frankly, just out of Little League I’m a bit overweight and undersized for the challenges of the official major league diamond. So, I’m spending my evenings riding the pine and watching Jimmy Albaugh, a one-handed wonder, behind the plate who’s leading the league in passed balls.
There’s little doubt that you’re the last man on a basketball team when your team goes to the State Finals and your coach takes your uniform away from you and gives them to a more talented player he’s bringing up from the Junior Varsity.
Back in 1960 Pernell Millberry was one of the best shots on the Francis Scott Key Eagles’ bench. How did I know? Because he sat beside me on the high school’s bench and told me this during every game we played.
In nineteen sixty our Eagles had lost that barnburner at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House to Surrattesville by a lousy four points.