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local parks and recreation department in my hometown had the brainstorm ef offering high school kids the chance to play softball under the lights at the new ^ park.
“Give these good kids something constructive to do,” was his idea. I guess that’s why he is the former director of the parks and recreation department.
If there’s one cardinal rule about kids who just graduated high school — who, in many cases now have a set of wheels, a little pocket money from their summer jobs and a sense of cockiness never before demonstrated — it’s never give them a chance to show off in front of a crowd. Especially on a Friday night.
But there we were: Friday night, trying to impress some girl we liked, but were too cool to talk to during the school year.
Alan Zelinski had other ideas.
Alan played left field and spent most of this night watching balls fly over his head and over the fence behind him for a home run.
Our team was getting crunched pretty good.
A second cardinal rule: Never let the hands of a high school senior trying to show off go idle. Ours did.
From my position in left-center field, I challenged Alan to a bet: If he threw the next ball that came to him over the backstop at home, I would present him with a six-pack of imported beer, the stuff in green bottles newspaper people can illafford to buy in their working years.
Alan, who, as a catcher in a Little League all-star game, was hit on the back of the head with a bat, was never strung particularly tight in the first place. Making a bet like that just fueled the fire
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