An extra piece of writing today. The story prompt from my writing group that I chose was “Travel back to your teenage years. Write about clubs and/or teams you joined.”
The Luck of the Draw
When it comes to playing on a team, I believe in luck. Whether it was good luck or not, luck seemed to follow me throughout my playing career.
When I was about 10, my parents encouraged me to join the Little League in our neighborhood. I have always been small in relation to most of my peers. So when I arrived at the practice field for the first meeting, and the coaches who were forming teams saw me, they decided that I should practice with the newbies, better known as the ones that no one feels can really play. It took me two swings on two flat pitches from an adult pitching to show that I knew how to hit flat, slow pitches. The adults immediately sent me back to the other field. I was to be in the majors. Boy, was I lucky.
I played one full season with that team. I batted .000, occasionally playing in the outfield (as far away as they could place me). My team even made it to our local world series, where I was the only player that didn’t get a chance to play. You can read more about that part of my life at https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=1363.
Encouraged by my father, a soccer player in his youth, I decided to try out for the school soccer team when I reached junior high school. One of the qualifications you had to have before making the team was to run around the field four times. I had yet to learn to pace myself when running distance, so I barely finished one lap. After that first lap, the coach decided I would not make the team. Luck wasn’t with me then, either.
When I turned 15 years old, the sport that I got into was ice hockey. This time I convinced my parents that it was the sport for me. We played games at a local indoor skating rink in Riverdale. Again my height and weight had them put me in the younger league rather than my age group. This time I did have some skills, as I knew how to skate, at least forwards. I had the requisite equipment, shin guards, gloves, a cup, and a helmet. I lacked elbow guards, which no one told me were necessary. In my first game, I discovered why they were necessary when I landed on the hard ice on my right elbow. For years afterward, I had to live with a displaced nerve in my elbow, creating twinges of pain when I rested that elbow on any hard surface, like a table. Luckily, I outgrew that injury.
In college, I was part of the forming of the Stony Brook Patriots ice hockey club. I had improved my skills at that point, and being one of the few players that could skate backward, I was given the title of assistant captain. We had the money for uniforms; however, we didn’t have money for extra letters for our jerseys, so my “A” for the assistant captain was made out of white adhesive tape. I scored no points that year, and our team lost every game.
By season two, the new, now paid, coach decided I was not assistant captain material, so I lost my “A” designation. We did win three games that season and even played one in Madison Square Garden, which we lost. The season’s highlight for me was scoring a goal at an away game, against Queens College, at the same rink where I grew up learning to skate. My family was there to see it. And as luck would have it, I scored a goal. Actually, the luck came when the puck stood in front of the opposing net. I was putting my stick on the ice behind it when I was checked from behind by a Queen’s player. The force of his check pushed me forward, forcing the puck to go into the net.
Now, I’m a couch participant in sports. It’s the teams I root for that need the luck more than I do.
