The Boys of Midsummer
R Dean Johnson
It takes a phone call from somebody else’s mother to remind your mother about the trip up to Los Angeles. It’s the All-Star Game, the midsummer classic, and it will be at Dodger Stadium for the first time ever. The rumors about what will happen once you get there are fantastic: You’re getting a tour of the locker rooms, getting to shag balls in the outfield during batting practice, getting to meet the players on the field and sit in the box seats behind home plate for the game. All of that. Or some of that. Or something like that.
Whatever is supposed to happen, you’re supposed to be excited about it. Amongst the hundreds of Little League teams in Los Angeles, this is quite an honor, especially since your team isn’t even from Los Angeles. You’re in Anaheim, only about thirty miles down the freeway from the stadium, but L.A. County is in a different league than Orange County. It’s skyscrapers and tangled freeways, art galleries and gang graffiti, movie stars and for this one day, the best baseball players on the planet all in the same place at the same time. You should be thrilled, and your… Read more »