Brandon Webb is on the mound tonight at Chase Field in Phoenix, starting the opening game of the National League Championship Series. He is pitching for the Western Division champions, Arizona Diamondbacks against the Central Division's Chicago Cubs. Should be an interesting series. The D-Backs lineup is made up of a bunch of guys who are not exactly household names. It's mostly a bunch of young guns who, as logic would have it, shouldn't even be in the playoffs. But, there they are, with the most wins of any team in the National League! Arizona won the World Series in 2001 with Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, but this is a totally different team. The Cubbies are a story of their own. Early in the season the Cubs didn't appear to have a prayer of postseason action, but "Sweet Lou" Pinella, in his first season as manager of the Cubs, has them in the playoffs after all. The boys from Wrigley Field haven't won a World Series since 1908. That's 99 years! Do you suppose the fans on the south side of Chicago are hungry for a trip back to the series? Duh!
Brandon is a big story around these parts. He is a hometown boy from here in Ashland, KY and a graduate of Paul G. Blazer High School. Brandon came up through the local youth baseball programs here in Ashland - first in the Ashland American Little League, then the local Babe Ruth League. He pitched for the high school Tomcats and played Connie Mack summer ball for French Harmon's Ashland Athletics. My younger son, Benji, played with Brandon on that Athletics team during Brandon's first couple of years. Webb was always an above average player, but really honed his pitching skills under Keith Madison at the University of Kentucky where he mastered the wicked sinker ball that helped him earn last year's Cy Young Award for the best pitcher in the National League.
I never had the opportunity to coach Brandon (which is probably a good thing for him!) but I did sponsor a minor league team in the American League where Brandon played as an eight year old. There is a good trivia question for future use. What was Brandon Webb's first Little League team ? Answer: it was none other than Adkins Insurance Agency! David May and Rob Francis were his coaches on the Adkins Agency team and Marvin Childers was the wise coach who drafted him to the Angels the next season.
Seeing Brandon pitching in the national spotlight tonight brings back many memories. Not just about him, but about the scores of young men whom I have had the pleasure of coaching personally in Little League and Babe Ruth Baseball programs and in Grade School Basketball. There are literally hundreds who I registered and worked with as a league official in Little League Baseball and the Ashland Junior Football League. A few of the boys who have come up through those programs went on to play college ball, and some have had limited professional sports careers, although none as notable as Brandon Webb. But as proud as I am of them, I am just as proud of how many of the others have turned out.
Among the numbers of the boys I have coached (or coached against) most of them are now productive members of our society. There are salesmen, accountants, nurses, physical therapists, bankers, pastors, teachers and coaches. Some are skilled laborers, and business managers. Some are working in construction trades, some as maintenance supervisors, youth ministers, and one is a grade school principal. Others have made careers in the Military and as Police officers, dispatchers, attorneys, and fire fighters. Most of them are now husbands and fathers and some of them are even coaching kids in youth programs themselves. I look at some of these guys now and realize that indeed I am getting older!
Most of the coaches and league officials who I have worked with in various youth sports leagues were in it for the same reasons I was - to help kids. Some of us started out with our own kids, but stayed around a number of years after ours were already aged out. Most of us gained a lot more than we gave by building relationships with those young men. Just two weeks ago I performed a wedding ceremony for Kevin Johnson, whom I coached as a 13-15 year old in Babe Ruth. It's nice to run into some of the boys now and then and see their smiles and hope that I have had a positive influence in their lives.
I wouldn't trade those memories for anything in the world.
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