The day we were married, Bruce had a ball game at Maconaquah Park and he was almost late for the wedding. I often wonder why we just didn't get married at the courthouse.
After all that's how Belgians get married. A religious wedding is not recognized as legal in Belgium, so it actually made more sense.
We didn't go on a honeymoon. We just went to the 4-H Fair and then back to the ballpark, as spectators this time.
Bruce played softball one more year and then work had to take priority over play.
I remember not understanding the game at all and being bored to tears.
I sat with women older than me, in that humid Indiana heat... Not my idea of having a fun time, that's for sure.
James was 6 years old when he started t-ball. Jonathan was just a little guy and he grew up at the ballpark. James had great coaches and he really made great strides that first year, going from knowing nothing to actually making decent plays out in the field.
The following year, Bruce accepted to coach the Red Sox in Junior Farm. I must say, that first year was a busy one for me as I was working at Busta's Bakery.
Bruce missed James' first homerun because he worked swing shifts. Luckily someone had videotaped and they showed it to Bruce but we never got a copy. It was the first days of video cameras. We bought one the following year and I recorded whole games from then on so bruce would never miss anything.
While James advanced to Junior Farm, Richard started tball. The park/field juggling began. Luckily these two fields were still next to each other so it was not too much trouble watching both play if they happened to play at the same time. I don't remember much of Richard's coaches. Whether they knew what they were doing or not, Richard was a natural and he started hitting homeruns right then. It was funny watching the coaches tell their kids to back up, back up and still the ball flew out of the park... Richard played on the same team as his cousin Jeremy while James had his cousin Wayne.
It's the following years that things became really interesting. All 4 cousins were on the team plus a step-cousin, Eric Mathias. Bruce managed the team, his brother Brian coached with him and during the games, their brother Barry umpired... So there were times when you had 7 Brindles out on the field at the same time!
James pitched and played short stop. Richard never had the same experience as James because the Peru Little League accepted a donation of pitching machines and these began to be used in Junior Farm for half the year. The purpose was to spare the kids'arms... truth be told, the umpire wanted shorter games, or maybe the league was trying to get more games in ...
No matter the consequences were that the Peru Little League quit producing good pitchers, or at least they weren't as common place.
James moved up to the Major League Cubs. Bruce moved up with him. He coached the Cubs and managed the Red Sox. That was crazy... the fields were no longer next to each other...
Melanie remembers that year really well because it's the year her dad forgot her birthday and traded that day to work for someone else so he could juggle the baseball schedule... He has paid for it ever since...
In all that year was probably my favorite ever.
The parents were intense but we had a great group. We had some excitement that year too with the team party at the swimming pool... One of the kids almost drowned as he went into spasms in the water. He was epileptic but didn't know it apparently... That was scary...
That happened on Richard's birthday too... The kids won the season record that year and then had to share the trophy with the second place team because the tournament was a wash due to the weather. I videotaped every one of their games.
James' games were another story... There was a huge fence there and I never found a way to record him except during the 11y old B team All Stars in Wabash...
They were the team nobody wanted... That's how Bruce got it actually. They were good little ball players but the coaches didn't play them where they would best produce.
Bruce has never played favorites, not even with his kids. Everyone had a turn on the bench and everyone played. James shone during that tournament, at 3rd base.
We did learn some things too, like... if you fall down when you try to get out of the way of a bad pitch, and your bat hits the ball ... it's a strike...
I set myself on the home base side and quietly recorded the game... yes, quietly... well so I thought... Every time we watch the tapes these days, I keep telling Bruce he should tell that crazy woman to be quiet... she screams too much...
But those were such FUN days.
That team was made up of most of the kids who took our High School team to the Final Four in 2000. They came close but no cigar...
The next year, James and Richard were on the Cubs together, along with their cousins.
Jonathan was playing tball and he was SO MUCH fun to watch!
He was not like his brothers had been. From the top of his 5y, he knew what he was doing on the baseball diamond. You could see the wheels turning... He tried to make plays but the other kids had no idea of what he was doing and it never worked out but it was so cool to see this feisty little toe-head play as though he was 9. And he could also hit homeruns.
The cool thing about these homeruns... They were proud but they never bragged...
Richard's hit the top of the concession stand on a regular basis and yet he ran the basis not unlike Roger Marris ran them... one was the same as the next...
I stayed with Jonathan so I missed many of the Cubs games. Later I missed Jon's games to follow the High School games.
In those days, WARU - the local Peru radio station - broadcasted the Little League games (Major League games) and we were able to record a couple of them. Looking back I wish I could have recorded all of them, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
Baseball practices started in December and the season didn't end until July, then we jumped into soccer for the next 3 months... As I watched the kids play I learned to understand what was going on.
After Major League came Babe Ruth for James. Bruce stayed with the Cubs.
The Babe Ruth field was bigger and James was so little... But he did great...
Richard was the wild pitcher but could he ever throw hard!
Jon moved up to Junior Farm and his team won the city tournament.
They had changed the system and the following year he moved up to Minor League. He broke his nose protecting first base... The runner ploughed right through him. He had to have surgery but nothing was going to keep him down... He was put behind homeplate and caught fiercely.
He looked as though he was saying: "It's my field you just walked on!".
Belinda Finnerty was his coach. She was great. They won the city tournament that year too and Jon was picked to play on the 9-10 y old A-team.
By then James was playing his second year of BabeRuth.
Jon moved up to the Major League Cubs and pitched and played everywhere. You could always put him anywhere because he knew the game so well he knew what to do wherever you put him.
James made the High School JV team, Richard in Babe Ruth... At least Michael had not started yet... That's another story...
I believe that's the year we found ourselves playing All-Stars in three different cities at the same time. That went on for 2 tourneys... I remember sitting in the van in Frankfurt, writing a letter to my father while watching the game... Explaining what was happenin
g...Bruce joked that he could not believe how well I could explain things for a European!
I had to draw pictures though because I didn't know the right words in French...
It didn't matter my father still didn't understand... How could he?
It took me years to really understand the finesses of the game... There was no way he could appreciate what was going on.
My summers were kept frantically busy with baseball all the way until 2006, the year Jon graduated from High School.
After their Babe Ruth league years, the boys advanced to play American Legion Ball and they travelled all over the state and into Kentucky and Michigan. James and Jon were not as happy playing American Legion as Richard was but there was a lot of politics mixed in there.
In 2006 Michael started the Little League cycle all over for us. We looked old enough to be his grandparents and Bruce's knees just could not take practicing... Poor Michael...That year, he missed the Little League Parade because it was the only time we were sure we could go watch Richard pitch for the University of Northern Alabama - probably the longest drive we have made to go watch a game...
Michael's team won the tourney that year, with Bruce as manager and Belinda Finnerty as coach. That was a fun year... except Jon's dreams came crashing on top of him when the doctor told him he had torn ligaments in his shoulder... He finished the season and gave all he had to give but that was no longer as good as he had been on his worst day. He was frustrated and hurt... Angry too... He tried to throw baseball out of his life... he took up golfing... He would not even watch a baseball game on
tv... It was painful to watch... We hoped things would return to normal. How could someone who loved baseball like Jon did, who breathed it in from every pore, how could he live without baseball? He could not... He eventually came back to it but realizing his new limits...There is much more to the story but I won't get into it.
It will be 30 years this summer since Bruce and I were married and during those 30 years, baseball has been a constant part of our landscape.
This year he agreed to manage yet another Little League team... Babe Ruth was replaced in Peru with the Senior Little League and Michael will be playing as a 13 y old this summer.
Bruce loves baseball just about as much as Jon does...
He growled when he found out he had been drafted into managing this team but in truth he loved it... I watch/hear (if it's possible) his face light up whenever he talks to the parents and regardless of his growl, he is enjoying this tremendously.
We win, we win... we lose, oh well... As long as we have fun...
He has come a long way from that ranting lunatic coach. He doesn't yell quite as much but that was never a problem for his players who knew down deep he was just growling and would not bite.
Do I love baseball?
No... not really.
But I love to watch the look that comes over my boys' faces when they play. It's in their blood... It may not be in mine but I have learned to understand the game and even appreciate the game. Just don't ask me to sit on bleachers...
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