Dear Friend,
As I get ready to take the field to begin
another year of high school umpiring, I was reminded of the following story
which I had heard years ago and which I had assumed was apocryphal. However, I
recently discovered that the author of the story was in fact a real college
umpire who shared this memorable message in Nashville, Tennessee, during the
first week of January 1996. It was shared with more than 4,000 baseball coaches
who descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention.
Here’s the story as it was told.
While waiting in line to register with the
hotel staff, veteran coaches were rumbling about the lineup of speakers
scheduled for the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always
with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of
my airfare.”
In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and
five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. As
he shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark
polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from
which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate …
really?
After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not
once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to
notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach
Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had
simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.
Then, finally …
“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing
home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State
Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the
others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but
I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you what
I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”
Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how
many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is
in Little League?” After a pause, someone offered, “17 inches,” more question
than answer.
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe
Ruth? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”
Another long pause.
“17 inches?” came a guess from another
reluctant coach.
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many
high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the
pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”
“17 inches,” they said, sounding more
confident.
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you
college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“17 inches!” said in unison.
“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is
home plate in pro ball?”
“17 inches!”
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home
plate is in the Major Leagues?”
“17 inches!”
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice
bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big-League pitcher who
can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to
Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.
“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say,
‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it
eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a
better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make
it wider still, say twenty-five inches.’”
Pause.
“Coaches …”
Pause.
“… what do we do when our best player shows up
late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up
unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we
change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?”
The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand
coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold.
He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw
something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed,
complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our
homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our
discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no
consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”
Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the
house he added a small American flag.
“This is the problem in our schools today. The
quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped
of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our
young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting
us?”
Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross.
“And this is the problem in the Church, where
powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young
children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our
church leaders are widening home plate!”
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you
will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to
hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if
we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are
unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the
standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold
themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look
forward to …”
With that, he held home plate in front of his
chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside.
“… dark days ahead.”
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91,
but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches.
His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your
players — no matter how good they are — your own children, and most of all,
keep yourself at seventeen inches.”
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
P.S. Thanks to former high school friend
and classmate, Dick Griffin, who reminded me of this memorable story. To learn
more about the coach, google Coach John Scolinos
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