"We're Gonna Knock Those Teeth Down Your Throat!"

In the summer of 1960, I was chosen for the Euclid Midget League All Star Baseball Team as a second baseman. We were going to play the champion Euclid Boys' League team in what they called "The Little World Series." The Euclid baseball officials made a big deal out of this and they arranged for considerable practice, and even instruction, for the members of the Midget League All Stars. Our coach/instructors included Bill Lewin, who played minor league baseball, and possibly Paul Serra, who also had played minor league baseball and for years coached the Euclid High School baseball team. One thing they taught and drilled into us was how to slide into a base, a "figure-four" slide, with the spikes held high. If you had to, you were to kick the ball out of a baseball mitt. And we were to go into the base hard. We were not told to hurt anybody, but to slide hard and to jar the ball lose if it came to that. Well it came to that. I believe the Little World Series involved several ball games, and we, the vastly underdog Midget Leaguers, beat the celebrated Boys' League champs because I slid into second base and kicked the ball out of Brad Sikora's mitt.

After that game, a coach from the other team approached me. He was a tall, imposing figure, about 40 years old, and I was about 4 feet tall and 12 years old. He lifted up my upper lip and said, "Next year when you're in Pony League my boys are going to kick those pretty teeth down your throat." At least that's how I remember it.

Well, that never happened. No one ever tried to kick my teeth down my throat. I noticed this week that the man who said those words to me died. There was a fairly large obituary in the Plain Dealer, and this man was a much honored and praised person. He is in 3 sports halls of fame (Willoughby South High School; Euclid Shore; and Heidelberg College). He was a very successful baseball and football coach around town (quoted as being a "smash-mouth" kind of football coach).

I wonder if I got the story wrong. Did he really intimidate me like this? It's so easy for a kid to misunderstand things. Maybe he did it or maybe I remember it wrong. If it were to happen today, he would be in huge legal trouble. Back then we shrugged off things like that. Whatever the situation, if he needs forgiveness, I forgive him. It had no lasting effect on me--except that I remember being frightened for a while.