Manager - Morris Buttermaker - Team#2_The Movies

Amanda Whurlitzer: I know an 11-year-old girl who is already on the pill.
Coach Morris Buttermaker: Don't ever say that word again.
Amanda Whurlitzer: Jesus! Just who in the heck you think you are?
Coach Morris Buttermaker: The goddamned manager, that's who!
Amanda Whurlitzer: Big wow!

In all honesty, the entire Bad News Bears (1976) roster could populate this category based on charm and originality. So perhaps it is appropriate that their manager will manage, in turn, The Movies Team, Team Number Two.

I stood at the mercy of many men in my baseball career (no women, that I can recall, in the lead role). Childhood and adolescence take their shape from the series of adults to whom the child submits for decision-making and leadership capacities. Baseball is perhaps an extreme example of this, as the adult/s in fact determine whether the kid gets to engage in the activity at all. When a kid goes to violin lessons, there is absolutely no chance that a teacher will prohibit the kid from actually playing the violin.

As a player, I was benched and withheld from Actual Baseball Action many, many times. Post-age 15 was an era of Playing Time Interuptus, characterized by stuttering inclusion in the course of the actual game. In high school and college there was 7/8 of the time a better catcher in front of me, and easy for various coaches to enjoy the fruits of my catching labor without payment in playing time.

In college, one coach nearly broke me. He was a football-type guy, and I knew far more about catching than he did, and he yelled a lot. His boss was irresolute and succeeded only when the players on his team transcended leadership. In high school, it was a zealous winner-type; charming and intense. An old friend from that team told me of a conversation long after high school, in which the coach told my friend that he should've played me more. By that time he'd left high school sports to be a car salesman in New Mexico (at the behest of his wife, the story goes), which seems a suitable enough penance.

That high school coach was a true lover of baseball, to the point of addiction. He pitched live batting practice, took swings in the batting cages, simulated games, all with a competitive scowl. He played in over-30 leagues. Instead of swearing--and thereby breaking his own rule--he bellowed "Dad-gummit!" on the minute. He was a hard man to dislike, and it was a slowly unfolding truth that though I played for his team, I never really would.

I have now done some coaching myself, a bunch of 13-year-olds. I am absolved of most of the personnel responsibilities, thankfully, but I've realized quite quickly how ruthless a coach's mind can be. There are kids I don't like to see out there, who've earned my bias. This is true, and maybe unavoidable. What I've tried to do, however, is to steer my biases based almost solely upon effort. The kids that rankle me are the ones who don't bust their humps.

Did I bust my hump as a player? Not always, but usually. Probably didn't look like it. A little lazy, not so dogmatically committed to excellence as some others. Pretty easy-going. Oops.

now, bad news bears, god-awful remake

Lineup - The Movies

C - John Kinsella
1B - Jack Elliot
2B - Ken Burns
3B - Roger Dorn
SS - Nicky Rogan
LF - Terence Mann
CF - Kelly Leak
RF - Shoeless Joe Jackson

SP - Bugs "Baseball Bugs" Bunny
RP - Ricky Vaughn

Manager - Morris Buttermaker