Something different.
Little League District 22
They carried Joe Barone off the field yesterday, his father did, holding his son in his powerful arms, they put him in the shade and put cold water on him and ice. The boy had caught 13 innings of pure drama. Over 200 pitches over 3 hours and starting with the 8th inning, when the inning started with a runner on second, and every one of those runners made it to 3rd, it was up to him to stop every pitch, he guarded home.
When I asked people about Joe Barone, they all said the same thing: “He’s the team leader on and off the field.” But I really got a unique insight into Barone during the home run derby, he was one of the final 4 so he was in that dugout where I was standing, and he was the nicest of kids, smiling, making friends with the other boys from the other teams. You could see the other boys naturally gravitate to him, they asked him about the rules of the tournament and he would answer good naturedly, an easy to talk to type of person.
When he is on the field as catcher, he is different, very serious because he takes his responsibility as the leader very seriously. He wants to do his best all the time. He wants to get a hit every time up… for his teammates and coaches.
Yesterday, playing in that once in a lifetime game, he displayed not only athletic skills but physical courage
People live on south shore to get that ocean breeze, here in the Bronx we don’t have ocean breezes we have oppressive humidity and before air conditioning the Bronx was a ghost town in the summer. A catcher is the only player who never gets a break, even during a pitching change he has to warm up the new pitcher and he is involved in every pitch. The other players may get a whole inning without a ball going anywhere near them.
But when that game got to the 8th, he was the last line of defense every single pitch.
They say he, in retrospect, when he talked about it, that he started to feel bad about the 10th inning but he wouldn’t tell anyone because he knows his coaches would have taken him out of the game and he wasn’t coming out of that game. No way, not him. He just gutted through it, sucked it up, dealt with it.
The game went so long that water ran out in the dugout, who prepares for 13 innings? Nobody. Parents were buying Gatorade and water trying to keep the boys supplied.
And of course, he was cheering his teammates on.
The game continued on, more runners on third, tie game, one ball off his glove and South Shore loses. Wasn’t going to happen, but you could see he was acting different. He seemed to wait longer to put his helmet on.
There are a lot of people who talk big, they talk about being a leader but how many kids can truly lead by example?
That whole team looks to him, he is their strength. If he had to sit down, it would literally be like taking the heart out of them. Because he isn’t just the catcher, he is the field general. No team relies on any one player the way that team relies on Joe Barone. Just his presence on the field reassures the others. And the pitchers, he works perfectly with each of them, has the mental team telepathy build up through the years
So, he just kept going. Sucked it up, didn’t tell anybody how he was feeling. And the game just kept going and going.
In the end when the game was won and they walked out to the outfield to talk, that’s when he finally told his father he wasn’t feeling well, he literally didn’t have the energy to walk.
His father picked him up and carried him off the field because that’s what a dad is for. He put his head against his father shoulder like he did when he was little boy. Everybody ran to get water for him and ice. Soon with the water and the ice and the love from everyone including his teammates, he began to feel better.
I don’t know what to say about a kid like that. The kid who simply didn’t want to let his teammates down and is the definition of heart, grit and leaving everything on the field.