Pildes was a baseball coach like none I'd ever known. He was passionate, persistent, headstrong, steady and righteously insane. He was a man of small stature, certainly, but had this bite - so subtle and affecting, he'd invade sleep. I loved him. He has also likely won 52 thousand games in his coaching career.
A couple months ago, cleaning my apartment, I stumbled into a wave of personal nostalgia - box of old pictures. I came across this photo...
1999 Norwood Blues. It was right after we had lost the NABF national championship to an outfit called the Bill Hood Broncos out of somewhere in the vicinity of Baton Rouge. I think we finished that year 54-7. Wins were foggy, losses I remember. 7 losses. The last one was tough...something in the air - those boys on the other side of the diamond played the game of their lives and I'm not just saying that 'cause we went down. They had a full ride LSU hurler/draftee on the hill that had been saved for us, somehow, 6 games deep into the World Series. He could shove, and a southpaw. They had a monster first inning and won the game something like 10-4. We took second place.
Inside this package...two T-shirts and a hat, all bearing logos I so revered in my back half years of high school. It smiled me something wide. I still so revere them. I was a Norwood Blue.
Summer baseball is supposed to be a time when you kick back, enjoy the dog days with the boys around town - play against other town's boys around town. It's about regional pride, a "our town is better than your town" kinda thing. I'm sure at some point, things were like that around Chicago. Pildes crushed that, treated the Chicago metro area as his own personal grab bag. In the Fall, calls would go out to his objects of desire. He'd recruit and assemble, steal each town's best player, build this arsenal that would go on tour when schools let their fools out. Truth was, most towns didn't have a player good enough. We were a force...
Every legion team we played circled their schedule. Most wouldn't come near us. The teams that did would save their best pitcher for the occasion. We'd win 18-2. When traffic was bad or when we were shorthanded and our pitchers had to hit, we'd win 11-2. We'd pimp home runs. Our fastballs were scorching. If towns were villages and we were raiders, the children would have been killed, the women raped and the homes burned. That's just how we rolled. And the swagger...oh, the swagger. In a sense, something about it all almost felt sadistic. We were evil but run with absolute class. It was the time of my athletic life.
In my 15 or so years of playing, I was never on a roster like the '99 Blues. Everyone went on to play college ball - most to major college programs. A handful were drafted. Two are playing in the Olympics** right now. But it wasn't just that. We had brilliant minds, a valedictorian - Ivy leaguers and professor's sons -- we had guys who puked at the first sight of a book. Such a ripe blend.
Oh nostalgia...fuck off but come and find me any time. Any time.
