LIFE: The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Watching the Texas broadcast of the Toronto Blue Jays-Texas Rangers game tonight. One of the announcers brought up the old saw about Rico Carty (a former Ranger and a THREE-time former Jay) playing games while carrying around his wallet in his back pocket. The Beeg Mon was notoriously distrustful of banks. As far as I know, the story is apocryphal, not true. The announcers sided with me.

That's not to say I'm not familiar with ballplayers filling their backpockets with foreign objects.

Back in the days when I was still coaching town rep softball, I had occasion to go from coaching boys to girls one summer. I usually did a bit of both, but this summer, I was at liberty and a pal who was coaching the bantam girls rep team more or less cajoled Gerry Harvey and myself to help him out. I'd coached some of the 13-14 year olds in training camps before and I was fairly tired with the politics of the boys' organization, so I gave in to temptation. It wasn't a full-time gig, but it kept my hand in coaching. Jim and Gerry did almost all the work.

As it turns out, the squad found itself playing in the Ontario B finals against Oshawa Storey Park. Playing at Storey Park was interesting. It was the worst diamond I've ever played on, including ones that were admittedly asphalt. This was like concrete, hard enough to play basketball on. I admit, I had serious misgivings letting our ladies play on it. But I got outvoted, some huge number to one.

The pitcher for our team was Kelly Hrysko. I had a background with the Hrysko family. I had coached her younger brother as a 10-year old. Joey was one of the few first-years on my first rep team (as a head coach). Joey was a delightful kid, as was the eldest sister, Terry. Each was a competitor, but tended to internalize things. Soft-spoken like their parents, Joey and Terry were joys to coach.

Kelly was a challenge. A hair-trigger temper made her the exception to the family rule. Blessed with looks, personality and athletic talent, Kelly only needed self-control to be a star. An example of her self control issues was her inability to pitch when her dad showed up. I could understand that. Ron Hrysko never said a cross word to me in all the time I knew him. And I was deathly afraid of him. Think Armand Asante thinking about your destruction. That was the look and vibe he gave off. Pleasant man by all reports, he just made me weak in the knees.

His daughter would storm off, rather than let him sit and watch her pitch. Again, to the best of my knowledge, he never raised a voice to her during any of the tempter tantrums. He'd sit in the car and watch from long distance.

Okay, the circumstances have been set. A couple of other details. Kelly's best friend was Liz Hamilton, a catcher type who occasionally played the outfield. Like this day. Early in the game, Liz miscalculated on a fly ball and that mistake put our girls down 1-0. Kelly was a hard friend. She pulled a Dave Stieb, stomping around, showing her obvious displeasure at her (former) best friend. She stayed frosty towards her pal as the innings mounted up and we still trailed 1-0.

Late in the game, two out and the bases empty. Kelly got up and laced a line drive down the line. She hauled butt around the bases and slid home in a small talcum dust cloud. SAFE! She got up bawling her eyes out.

I rushed in to get her, thinking that she was crying over the fact she could be friends with Liz again. I thought that was what girls did. I asked her if she was all right, why she was crying.

The words came out in stuttering slowness. "I ... I ... I ..."

"You can be friends with Liz, again?"

"N... No ... No... I... I... st-stabbed myself!"

She turned around. She had a comb in her back pocket. The kind that was popular with the afro-wearing crowd, but was also used by girls with what we would call 'Big Hair' these days. You know the kind. A paintbrush handle with four or five prongs coming out of the base. Today, that brush would get confiscated at any airport in the world. Then, it was an incredibly dangerous thing to go round running with. Didn't matter.

The girl simply could not play ball without have a comb in her pocket.

And that's the difference between boys and girls.