The Breakfast of Champions

Well, I'm awake. And not horribly tired (damn you, three day weekend.) So I suppose I will write another story from my would-be novel.

The Breakfast of Champions

I have always loved baseball. It was the only sport that I ever had any true talent in, and the only one that I was willing to actually attempt to play. I was too much of a priss to sign up for the football team, even though during my freshman year of high school, the coach actually called my house and asked for me to try out. He only did this because I was about as wide as I was tall, but I digress. Basketball was also out of the picture for me. I wasn't horribly coordinated, so dribbling while running never worked out too well. I also had very little upper body strength: my "shots" were instead two-handed passes at the rim. And then there was the unfortunate accident later in life when my ankle touched the gym floor as I was coming down from a rebound. The echoing sound of my tendon snapping over the bone alone made me never want to touch another basketball. But that story is for another time.

Thankfully, my dad saw some sort of promise in my baseball talents and got me started at a young age. I skipped tee ball. Even then I didn't understand the point in playing a game where everyone got to bat every inning; everyone got to run around the bases; everyone got a trophy.

Horse shit.

Games like that develop a sense of entitlement in children that fosters ill manners and bad behavior later in life. If you suck at something, you shouldn't play it. Don't encourage it just because you think your child should have some sort of pass-time. Teach them to knit or something. Tether them to a pole out back. Encourage them to play in traffic, as my father did. But don't reward their inabilities with spray painted figurines on top of rainbow-encrusted plastic.

When I first started Minor League, a step above tee ball, coaches would feed the balls into a pitching machine, as no child on the team had enough power or accuracy to pitch properly. When coaches and parents argued that the machine was unfair (for some reason unbeknownst to me,) they switched to the coaches pitching to their own teams. If the ball was hit back to the coach, he should try his best to get out of the way, as if it touched him, it was automatically a single.

I've always been a good hitter. I bat left handed even though I throw right handed, which is a good combo to have. I also have always swung late, which means I consistently hit into left field (and for those of you who aren't familiar with baseball, coaches tend to shift the outfield toward right field when lefties come up to bat.) All this was beneficial to my baseball prowess. Oscar, however, was not.

Oscar was my coach for my first year of little league. He was probably 6'2 and weighed 140 soaking wet. If you pictured a 90s dad, complete with pedophile glasses and balding bowl cut, you'd just about have him pegged. He was one of the nicest men I'd ever met, and was a decent coach. He was also best friends with my uncle and dad, so we had known him well.

And then I broke his kneecap.

It was an accident, really. I was batting, he was pitching, per the rules. If my hits don't go into left field, they're usually line drives right back at the pitcher. And since a 40-year-old man doesn't have the sharpest reflexes, the sickening pop of the ball as it shattered his patella was enough for the coaches to decide that they would no longer be pitching the balls.

It was like I broke baseball.

They went back to the pitching machine, with the coach standing behind a net. If the ball went into the net, it was an automatic single. A much safer way of going about things, but a lot of good hits were probably stolen by that net.

With Oscar being out of commission due to his knee, one of the other dads took over coaching the team. He also happened to serve as my boy scout troop leader, so I got a double dose of Mr. Bidwell. He, also, was a nice enough man. His two sons also played on our baseball team. Once, I accidentally knocked his youngest son out by hitting him in the head with my bat.

I'd forgotten what a clumsy, hazardous child I was.

In any case, one night after a rousing game, the plan was to head to a boy scout retreat off in the Daniel Boone national forest. The others had already arrived, and the few of us on the team who were also boy scouts were the last to get there, with Father Bidwell bringing up the rear. Mumbles and grumbles spread throughout the camp as the fathers grew restless. I asked my dad what had happened and he explained that Bidwell had locked his keys in his car without getting any of his own supplies, including a tent, sleeping bags or air mattress. We offered our own tent, and he and his youngest son slept on the ground beside my father and me on our air mattress.

The night was horrible. Not only did I have to sleep listening to the whimpers of the boy I beat in the head with a baseball bat, but I had to ride out a night of severe storms in my baseball uniform. Obviously not a lot of foresight there. We found out later that there was a tornado warning for the area, with an actual touch down a few miles away. We awoke the next morning a little worse for wear, some of the campers drenched from faulty lining in their tents. But we still managed to put on smiles and build the camp fire. One of the older boys was asked to teach us how to make a "rugged scout's breakfast." This entailed us finding a suitable stick in the woods, wrapping a biscuit from a can around it, and allowing it to bake over the fire.

I. Love. Biscuits.

I always have, and probably always will (even if the anticipation of the popping sound when opening a can nearly kills me each time.) I probably ate four of them. So good. But you have to keep in mind, a camp fire is not the most effective means of cooking anything, let alone allowing raw dough to bake. So 20 minutes later when four biscuits-worth of mostly raw Grand's hit my intestines, it was show time.

I stood up calmly and began a very slow march to the bathroom which was situated probably 70 yards away from our campsite. If you're unfamiliar with the need to shit immensely, consider yourself lucky. With my cheeks clenched as tightly as I could muster, I began praying that I could make it before detonation occurred. I stared at the ground, wishing the earth would move faster under my feet. About 30 yards into my journey, I heard a high pitched, mincing voice that belonged to a fellow boy scout of mine named Chris. He was unnecessarily flamboyant, even for a child, and could have been the son of two drag queens for all I knew.

"Wait for me!" he squealed, and commenced skipping from where he stood some 10 yards from me. I began moving again before he met up with me, as I could feel my bowels beginning to anger. I made it probably another 5 yards before my first slip.

Just one. It's just a little. Easily cleaned up. Manageable. I'm fine. Just keep trucking.

Then another. Ok, really gotta hold it in now. No more slip ups. Gotta tighten, gotta squeeze.

Each step was another mini-explosion; another slip. I finally gave up and began to run the remaining distance leaving Chris in my dust.

I busted into the stall door of the bathroom, swung it shut, locked it with a shaky hand and grabbed my baseball pants. If you are unfamiliar with pants worn in baseball, they are made nearly entirely out of spandex, thus making them the perfect material for a slingshot.

Everywhere. Just... everywhere.

On the stall. On the wall. On the floor. On the door. On the toilet. In the toilet. Really any surface that was stationary long enough to bare the load. It was a Grand's nightmare.

I cleaned up as much as I possibly could, leaving my soiled tighty whities in the trash can before heading back to the campsite. I found my father with the other dads gathered around the fire and I snuck over to him to quietly share the bad news. I bent down and whispered and softly as I could in his ear.

"I pooped my pants."

I can tell you I haven't said that line too many times in my life. This was obviously the worst.

"What?" he responded in a harsh, hushed whisper - a disturbed look on his face. I repeated myself.

"I pooped my pants."

His incredulous stare bore deep into my soul, but he eventually raised himself from his stump/stool and followed me to the bathroom.

"Jesus Christ, Curtis!" he said, raising his voice. I attempted to hush him so others wouldn't be drawn to the clatter. I urged him to help me clean it, and tried as we might, there was only so much single-ply toilet paper could do. When the walls began looking more like an impressionistic painting than a bathroom, we cut our losses and gave up.

While washing our hands at the sinks in front of the stall doors, the door to the bathroom swiftly swung open and another scout came in. The bathroom was on the small side, but still held two urinals and three stalls within its cramped space. Like a blood hound, Robert made a beeline for the stall of no return. I watched in the mirror as he pushed the door open, and upon seeing my masterpiece, yelled, "Good Lord, what is wrong with people?" I caught my dad's eye in the mirror and we both nodded profusely in agreement.

And after an unceremonious hosing by my mother in the backyard, it was decided: I had to get a new pair of dark blue baseball pants.