Better Late Than Never

Proud

I played baseball in Mahopac for the Mahopac Sports Association from 1977-1987.

Other than bowling, I didn't play sports at Mahopac High School.

But when it came time to get my class ring, I elected to have a baseball player engraved on one side. As much as I loved being the captain of the bowling team -- and I'm still very proud of that -- I knew that I most-identified with baseball as a sport.

As teenagers are wont to do, I got mocked for doing so. Who was I to put baseball on my ring? I wasn't on the team. To be very clear, I didn't imply that I played baseball at MHS. It was just a baseball player figure.

Still, me being me, it bothered me. Maybe I shouldn't have done it. I wasn't trying to misrepresent anything.

Thirty-one years later, I finally began a relationship with Mahopac High School baseball when I called a few of their games on Robcasting Radio. I carried that into 2019.

Today, for the first time, I called a road game as the Indians played the Somers Tuskers. At the game, head coach Myckie Lugbauer presented me with a Mahopac Baseball Under Amour hoodie.

I can't stress just how happy I was to receive it, and how proud I'll be to wear it.

This is to take nothing away from my Mahopac Hockey hoodie, but hockey wasn't a thing at Mahopac when I went to school there.

I wanted to play baseball. I went out for the sport as a freshman (same with football) and didn't make it (ditto).

I never went back. I got talked out of it.

I'm not a part of Mahopac baseball now. I'm not at practices. I'm not a coach. I don't ride the bus. I don't sit in the dugout. I don't know the players.

But I do know the coaches, and I consider them friends. They've allowed me to be a part of their team, if even only from a distance. They've closed their door and trusted me in the way that other coaches have.

And I guess I'm maybe the...er...Mahopac baseball broadcaster.

It's been a wonderful experience. One that I'm grateful for.

I texted a picture of me wearing the hoodie to a friend.

"That one is special, I bet," came the reply.

"Indescribably," I said.

So maybe, over 30 years later, I've earned the right to have a Mahopac baseball logo on me.

*****

No matter what, I tell broadcasters to stay true to the craft. The game will always be the thing. It's not about the cute one-liners or anything else. It's the game.

Above all else, getting that game on the air is what matters.

I pulled into Somers a good 90 minutes before first pitch. I waited for the Somers AD to help get me electrical access before it seemed like it wasn't going to happen. So I went on about my business. I gathered lineups from both coaches, picked up my hoodie from the Mahopac coaches, and went back to the right field corner.

I scrawled down the lineups and prepared a backup system to call the game off my cell phone.

Then the AD showed up. The first pitch was thrown while we ran the power. I kept a mental scorecard and caught up as I set up. I was finally on the air with two out in the bottom of the first.

My view was unique.

Who cares? I was there. The game got on the air. And other than my telling the stories, nobody knew or cared.

Some of my brethren get so high and mighty about this (and other things). I had to call a game well over in foul territory in right field. Friends said I was in the "Uecker seats."

I was there. That was the best we could do. Somers was nice enough to have me there and help me.

Sometimes we have to manage our expectations. The perfectionist in me wanted to be on the air for first pitch. The listener just wanted the broadcast. All we can do is be honest and explain.

I called the game, did my best, and went home.

It's not about us.

It's about the game.

Mahopac lost 2-0. I'm likely no longer a good luck charm.