"Just" Some Kids Playin' Ball

Day 4 of the Anderson Monarchs Civil Rights Barnstorming Tour.

Richmond, Virginia.

Game day.

Glen Allen Stadium at RF&P Park is a beautiful train depot, reconfigured into a stunning grass baseball complex.

But there is no way that these kids are playing “just” baseball games. My kids played baseball, and it entailed getting to the field early for BP, playing the game, and remembering to pick up the trash before they left.

This is different. There are boxes of baseballs to sign--during the game. A grown man, (a scout or recruiter possibly?) asked one player (in the on deck circle!) what High School he would attend. The player didn't miss a beat, "Umm, can we talk about that after the game?"

The bus is different. The Monarch's 1947 Flexible Clipper is emblazoned with the words “Civil Rights Barnstorming Tour” and lists the names of cities that are uncomfortable reminders of a bygone era, but whose issues are front and center in the news today. Those cities are coming up this week, so this is really the calm before the storm. Not that the players haven’t been prepared, but I’ve heard some chatter about the kids uncertainty about what lies ahead. These kids know they have some emotional confrontations ahead.

The fans are different too. Sure there would be natural curiosity and anticipation about any team making so bold an outreach, but there is always an eye to a storm, and that eye rests clearly on Mo’ne Davis. Mo’ne may appear to have ice running through her veins on the field, but she’s just a kid. A really cool, very quiet, teenager (ok, so she’s loud playing UNO on the bus, but only when she catches someone cheating…). She’s respectful and pretty shy except when around her teammates, and accepts the fame that descended after her team’s 2014 Little League World Series appearance.

There are little reminders of our world's need for celebrity to define everything. The Monarchs quest should stand on it’s own, but the places we visit cannot help defining them through Mo'ne. The announcement of the team is almost always “Mo’ne Davis and the Anderson Monarchs”; she is often asked to re-Tweet people’s posts of their selfies with her (tour policy, however, is no-electronics-on-the-bus, so Monarchs manager Steve Bandura can go on record proving that kids can indeed be engaging and have fun without cell phones); and fans who are frantic when they first see her, get downright panicky after games, when opportunity and time is slipping away to get a picture with her. At a gas station today, a retirement-age couple simply started to get on the bus to meet her until a tour parent suggested they leave. And I’ve heard requests for her number catcalled out of cars with no teenagers inside. It is an overwhelming responsibility, and she, and the whole team, handle it with incredible grace and tolerance.

And maybe there's a little magic on the bus...because the Monarchs' Friday's visit with Max Scherzer preceded his Saturday no-hitter. Coincidence? I think not.

So, it's not just baseball. There's a lot going on for these 13 and 14 year-olds.

Today’s game (a 19-2 win that was played in stifling heat) and the teams visit to the Team USA Baseball Complex in Cary, NC. (cut short by rain), are documented below.