It has been 40 years since Lavern played baseball and well before the
Bad News Bears was a movie. Below is a short story of the summer of 69
and Lavern’s first little league game.

I grew up in a very small farming community in eastern Colorado. Each
summer many of the kids in the town would play little league baseball.
Being a farming community meant that a majority of the children either
lived on or worked at a farm during the summer months. Since most of
our evenings, attendance wasn’t a big problem. However, during the
month of July, this changed.

Most of the farms in my area grew wheat as their means of existence.
The wheat was planted in the fall and harvested in the summer. In our
part of the state, wheat harvest was usually around the first or second
week of July. Harvest time was always a problem for our baseball program.
Since a lot of our players lived on these farms, they had to help with the
harvest and thus were not able to play baseball during these weeks.

The year was 1969 and we had one of the best little league baseball teams
in the state. We mowed over team after team usually implementing the 10
run rule. (This rule is if a team is up by 10 or more runs in the 5th inning,
the game is over). Our team had breezed through the division and won an
invitation to the state tournament. Unfortunately the tournament was
scheduled for July 8th which was right in the middle of the wheat harvest.
Out of nine starters on our team six would have to miss the tournament
and our bench would be down 5 others. Our full team consisted of 19 total
players so this only left us with 8 which of course meant we could not field
a team for the tournament.

Back in 69 the folks who ran the states little league baseball program were
not very diligent at checking the status of the players in the league. During
tournaments we were required to bring a copy of our birth certificates for
age verification but they didn’t check whether the players had played a
game during the regular season. This oversight gave us a way to try and
get enough players to compete in the state tournament. The players on our
team who were still able to play went on a recruitment quest. We talked to,
strong armed, threatened and intimated every kid in a 20 mile radius who
even looked like they could hit a baseball. It didn’t matter if they had ever
played the game before but if they were available to suite up on July 8th
then they would be welcome on the team. We ended up with 5 new ball
players to bring the team up to 13 which was enough for us to enter the
tournament. Unfortunately for these 5 new members , we were not able
to schedule a formal practice before leaving for the tournament and these
kids knew little if anything about baseball.

Our first game in the state tournament was at 5 PM the night of the 8th.
The competition was being held in Greeley Colorado about a 2 hour drive
from my hometown. Everyone met at noon at our local ball field so the
new kids could get their uniforms and position assignments. Right away
we noticed a problem. Three of the new players did not have a baseball
glove. Luckily some of the parents, who were driving us to the game,
came up with 3 extra gloves for these kids to use. You could see by the
apprehension on their faces that these kids were not too keen on the idea
of playing a game they had little if any experience ever playing. I am sure
that most hoped to just ride the bench and never set foot on the field.
Our hope as a team was that our pitching staff was strong enough and
the left over starters could carry us through this first game. If we won,
we would have a bye and wouldn’t return to the tournament until the next
week. This would allow for the harvest to be completed so we would have
back our star players.

We arrived at the tournament around 3:30 and took to the practice field.
As we started warming up we quickly realized that we were in trouble. As
the winner of our league we expected to be in a bracket that would allow
us to play a weaker team the first round. This wasn’t the case, for some
odd reason we drew a team that like us, had not lost a game all season.
This meant that the two best teams in the league would be playing each
other with our team missing 6 of its best players.

We won the coin toss and were the home team. This meant we took the
field in the first inning. Eight of the nine players on the field had at least
played ball during the season, the other (Lavern) had never played
organized baseball before but could throw and sometimes catch the ball
so we started him in right field. Fortunately for Lavern our pitcher struck
out two and the third batter grounded out. Lavern was very relieved as
he ran off of the field and his enthusiasm didn’t waver until he heard us
yelling at him. Poor Lavern had gone to the wrong dugout and was sitting
with the opposing team. He sheepishly walked over to our dugout and
prepared for the razzing that he knew was coming. During our turn at bat
we went three up and three down so back out to the field we went.

When a team takes the field it is common for the players to throw the ball
around while the pitcher warms up his arm. The outfielders were throwing
pop ups to each other and the center fielder overthrew Lavern and the
ball went over the fence. Lavern having never been in a game before
didn’t realize that someone else would get the ball so instead he climbed
the chain link fence to retrieve it. As Lavern was scaling the top of the
fence he slipped and fell forward. This could have been a terrible accident
if he would have tumbled face first off of the fence but his pants leg
caught on a link and kept him from hitting the ground. This stroke of luck
wasn’t quite what Lavern was looking for. As mentioned he did not fall to
the ground but was now hanging upside down on the opposite side of the
right field fence.

Now most games played in these tournaments are on a tight time frame
but there is no way they were going to continue our game with our right
fielder hanging upside down on the fence while screaming his lungs out.
The coaches, umpires and a few parents descended on Lavern to help
him get out of his predicament. However Lavern’s pants leg was so
entwined in the fence and with all his weight dangling from the pants legs,
the rescuers were unable to free him. The only way anyone could figure
out how to get Lavern down was to unbuckle his pants and pull him down.
This wasn’t what Lavern wanted to hear. The thought of standing pant-less
in front of a bunch of spectators was mortifying to Lavern and he begged
the coach not to de-pants him. Happily one of the parents had a knife and
was able to cut loose the material that had Lavern trapped. As Lavern was
lowered to the ground he received a standing ovation from the crowd as
well as a lot of laughter from the other team. Even though his face was
bright red from all the blood that rushed to it while hanging upside down,
Lavern didn’t give up and jogged out to take his position in right field.
Lavern’s little escapade evidently gave the opposing team some confidence
as well as shook up our pitcher. By the end of that inning the score was
14-0 in favor of the bad guys. The game ended after we batted in the 5th
due to the 10 run rule. We lost 17 -1.

Now you would think after everything that happened as a team we would
be very disenchanted. On the other hand, because of Lavern, the sadness
of the loss was quickly replaced with funny memory of him sitting in the
wrong dugout and hanging upside down on the center field fence. Our
season ended on that game and as far as I know Lavern never again
played organized baseball. He did nonetheless take up bowling and became
an extremely first-rate bowler.