Little League, Big Dreams

by Charles Euchner

  When I asked Curaçao’s players the same question, they named most of the same teams as Isabella. They never mentioned the American teams. When I asked why, they said the Americans didn’t work on their skills enough. They won on strength alone.

  “They cheated,” Rudmichaell Brandao said when I ask him about Hawaii. “They had older guys on the team. They had to be older. They were so big. They were monsters.”

  I told him that, as far as I knew, the Hawaiian players were all under the Little League’s age limit (players cannot turn thirteen before the cutoff date of July 31; starting in 2006, that cutoff date is April 30). He didn’t believe me. He shook his head. “But they’re so big,” he said again.

  The American game is like the rest of American society—committed to the exercise of power, and creative in devising new approaches to the game, but often deficient in fundamentals and discipline.

  If only they worked harder, foreigners often say with a sigh, they would be so much better. But look at the way they conduct themselves on the field. They goof off. They ignore their coaches. They stubbornly cling to their idiosyncratic batting styles and pitching motions. They swing for home runs. They try to strike out every batter. They hot-dog it in the field. They’re big enough so they can win, sure, but they really should work harder.

  Robert Whiting explored the contrasting styles of baseball in the U.S. and Japan for his book You Gotta Have Wa. Whiting lived in Tokyo and interviewed players and coaches from both sides of the Pacific who played in the Japanese leagues. “They really admire the power and dynamism and creativity of it all,” Whiting says. “But they note all the little things they don’t do, like advancing the runner, hitting to the opposite field, and defensive positioning. If they applied themselves, they’d be so much better.”

  The American game begins with power—and that game is especially suited to the Little League World Series. Throw hard, hit hard, and slide hard. Games are won and lost with strikeouts and home runs. Running into walls and diving into the stands doesn’t make much sense.

  The teams from Hawaii and California offered perfect representations of the American game’s raw power.

  Kalen Pimentel, California’s goateed pitcher/shortstop/catcher, started the series for the Rancho Buena Vista Little Leaguers by striking out eighteen batters in the opening day win over Owensboro, Kentucky. California won 7–2 when Nathan Lewis and Aaron Kim hit home runs.

  In California’s next two games—against Westbrook, Maine, and Lafayette, Louisiana—Pimentel showed his power at the plate. He hit grand slams in both games to lead R.B.V. to 7–2 and 9–3 victories. Reed Reznicek also homered for R.B.V.

  In the American semifinal game against Florida, Pimentel struck out nine batters and beat another marquee pitcher, Dante Bichette Jr., 6–2. But Pimentel’s strength took the form of perseverance in this game. Confronting a small strike zone, which pushed his pitch count to 103, Pimentel had to fight for every out.

  Hawaii hit thirteen home runs in the World Series, more than any other team in Williamsport and two short of the record. It seemed like everyone hit those homers—Alaka’i Aglipay and Bubbles Baniaga, Kini Enos and Michael Memea, Vonn Fe’ao and Quentin Guevara. Even when the Hawaiians got fooled—like the time Louisiana’s Jace Conrad baffled them with his odd motion—they won with a big home run.

  Home runs accounted for twenty of Hawaii’s thirty-two runs in the first five games of the World Series. How very American. All or nothing.

  And the physical domination continued on the mound. Pitchers like Alaka’i Aglipay and Vonn Fe’ao were completely dominating. Fe’ao probably threw the ball as hard as anyone in the ten-day tournament.

  Hawaii’s Michael Memea is exactly the kind of player that makes foreigners critical of the American game. Lots of power, not enough quickness or skill.

  When I visited Curaçao a few months after the Series, I talked with Isabella about a wide range of players from both American and international teams. When I got to Memea’s name, he was especially emphatic.

  “I would not take him on my team,” Isabella said. “He’s not a guy who makes a lot of contact. If I could use someone like him only to catch, and not have to use him batting, then I would take someone like him on my team.”

  Michael Memea’s bat scorched Curaçao in the championship game, but Isabella was not impressed. Typical American—big and strong, but undisciplined, rough, and unreliable.

  Isabella’s missed something important in his assessment. Yes, Mike Memea is big and clunky. Catcher, first base, and third base are probably the only positions he can play in a competitive league. He doesn’t have the quickness that other positions demand. You could say he’s a onedimensional player—strong enough to pound the ball when he connects, but not terribly helpful otherwise.

  But that misses how American baseball works. American baseball is a game not only of power—which Memea can supply—but also roleplayers. The international teams often boasted that their players could play almost all positions. They’re all-around players. Which is great. But the Americans put together teams not of interchangeable parts, but of specific parts designed for specific purposes.

  Michael Memea would be a disaster, probably, at shortstop. He’s no Jurickson Profar. But what he does works, at least in Little League.

  Michael Memea’s background, the way he is driven, is also classically American. He’s an immigrant’s kid. His father didn’t have much growing up, but he made a steady career in the navy that enabled his youngsters to play sports. And since Michael has those opportunities his parents didn’t have, he’s pushed hard to make good.

  Michael’s father Mack, a career navy logistics officer who retired at the end of the year with twenty years service, came to Hawaii at the age of thirteen from Samoa. He played some high school sports with middling success, and then got a job. His name is appropriate—he’s about as square and solid and intimidating as a Mack truck. He has short black hair and a round and inviting face. But he sets strict standards and pushes his kids to meet them. The kids have found that the only way past their father’s will is to have an even more intense will of their own.

  Michael Memea is the second great athlete in the Memea household. His older sister Desiree is a world champion wrestler who hopes to make the U.S. Olympic team in 2008.

  “I tried to put Desiree into softball,” Mack Memea told me as we drank coffee at a McDonald’s before meeting Michael for basketball practice. “She had the right physique and all the potential but she couldn’t put it together. The ball hit her in the face and that was it, she stopped. Then I tried to put her in basketball and volleyball, and she was uncoordinated, and it was so frustrating to me. She finally molded herself to play basketball and volleyball, but now she’s in wrestling.”

  In fact, Desiree won the national championship in the 175-pound division in Fargo, North Dakota. At five feet, eight inches, 158 pounds, she has a lot of room to develop physically. At first, Mack opposed her wrestling. He told her she didn’t have the toughness or the “mentality” to succeed in such a rough sport—in such a boy’s sport. But he’s happy to be proven wrong. When he was stationed in Bahrain, he had videos of her matches emailed to him.

  Mack also pushes Michael. He takes him to batting cages and gyms for workouts. He goes to baseball and basketball practices. And he lectures him about everything—how to be around girls, how to follow a coach’s instructions, how to talk with strangers, dating (when he’s sixteen, he can start group dating but nothing more), and whether to stick with catching despite his strong desire to play center field.

  Mack’s overbearing ways can be a burden, but he succeeds in provoking his children: You got a better way? Then tell me—and prove it! Teammates say Michael is one of the most stubborn members of the team. Mack says, with some pride, that he’s a “kiss-my-butt kind of kid.”

  Memea’s body-type is perfect for a catcher—big and bulky, slow moving but sturdy—but Memea openly resents playing the position. H
e played the position for the Hawaii all-stars because he respected his manager, Layton Aliviado, and wanted to be part of a team that went all the way. Mack Memea once intervened on the catcher issue. He asked Aliviado to play Vonn Fe’ao behind the plate, but Aliviado said no, since Fe’ao was a critical late-innings pitcher, and catching would put too much strain on his arm.

  I spent a few hours with the two Memeas, and Mike would not let go of his desire to quit catching. He talked about how he wanted to be like Bernie Williams. I told him that the Yankees were going to get another center fielder. He was crestfallen. Then I told him that catching is the quickest route to the major leagues. “See!” Mack Memea almost shouted with glee. “Listen to him! Maybe that’s what you should think about, Mike!”

  Mike wouldn’t budge. “I want to play center, like Bernie,” he said.

  Mike Memea has not yet grown into his body or his place in the world. He shuffles around, seeming to occupy his own time zone. He swings the bat slowly—but powerfully. He swings and misses at pitch after pitch, trying to get his timing and rhythm. When he connects, the sheer power of his body and swing can send the ball far. He bats in the middle of Hawaii’s order because he connects enough. Other teams don’t see him enough to pitch to his weaknesses.

  But like powerful American athletes everywhere, he’s not embarrassed by his failures. He checks his swing on an inside pitch. Strike! He reaches for an outside pitch. Strike! He swings past a high fastball so late you wonder if he’s just getting an early start on the next pitch. Strike! He uppercuts and misses. Strike! And when he’s not swinging around pitches, he’s hitting them late, fouling the ball the other way or just nicking it back to the backstop.

  I got DVDs of all of Hawaii’s games from the regional tournament’s final game through the World Series finale. I decided to look carefully at Memea’s at-bats to see how fair Isabella was being. At times, Memea looked awful. He brought his bat around in a big, slow arc, sometimes long after the ball popped into the catcher’s glove. But there was something steady about him too. He’s smart enough to learn during an atbat. And he’s confident enough to forget about an awful swing and come back and hit the ball hard. Who cares about the ugly swing on the curveball? There’s always another pitch.

  He takes those deep breaths, wags the bat behind his head, makes his head still, and gets ready.

  And then he connects. After a couple bad swings, he puts the fat part of the bat on the ball. If he just lays the bat on the ball, he’s so strong that the ball whistles on a line to the outfield.

  “He has that ugly swing,” says his manager, Layton Aliviado. “But then, you know what? He could still hit it hard.”

  At the age of twelve, Memea’s already something of a journeyman, constantly on the search for the right fit. His first Little League coach was a nightmare, screaming and yelling and not doing too much teaching. Then he tried the PONY League, but the schedule didn’t work out. He played in Little League again when he found out Aliviado was building a team to take a run at Williamsport.

  If all this sounds like it’s too serious for a kid, it is. Sometimes, Mike Memea seems like he’d rather play in the days before Little League. What kind of sandlot baseball did they once play in Ewa Beach? For Mike Memea, it would be enough to play all day without the trappings of uniforms and interviews and championships.

  But in the modern age, baseball has become another project for American kids. If he’s going to keep up, as Mack wants him to and as Desiree challenges him to, he’s got to work hard at the pieces of his game. He does it with baseball and basketball, too.

  Memea has been playing baseball practically since he was crawling.

  “When he was nine months old, he threw a plastic ball across the living room and it was hard and fast,” Mack Memea remembers. “When he was three, a neighbor had a pitching thing that pitched the ball and he hit it over the house. From then on, that’s when we knew he had a fit in baseball. Till he was ten, I worked with him, throwing plastic golf balls at close range. I take him to the batting cage and get him to set the ball fast.”

  Michael Memea has learned at a young age how to sort through what his strong-willed father and sister push him to do. They’ve been testing him since he was a baby. He follows his parents’ teachings on hard work and good manners. But he’s going to find his own way. Everyone— family members, teammates, coaches—agrees about that.

  Maybe he knows something other people around him don’t know, that he’s got to do it his way or it’s not worth the trouble. Sure, there’s lots to learn. But learning requires not just following orders, but also deciding things for yourself.

  How very American.

  The team from Willemstad, Curaçao, celebrated rallies and victories throughout the Little League World Series.

  Layton Aliviado celebrates one last victory in the Little League World Series with his players.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Greatest Little League World Series Ever

  FANS START GATHERING BEFORE NINE in the morning—some years they gather as early as six—for a game that’s scheduled to begin a little after four in the afternoon.

  They bring lawn chairs and blankets and picnics and balls and Frisbees. When the cast-iron gates to the Little League complex open, they come spilling through unevenly, like lumpy gravy, to claim spaces on the two ridges of grass that lie beyond the outfield fence at Howard Lamade Stadium. They spread their blankets until The Hill looks like a giant quilt, with patches of red and blue and green and yellow.

  In the Woodstock of youth baseball, kids are free to run around with little supervision from parents. Lemonade stands set up on the edge of The Hill. Kids start hurling their baseballs in long arcs that fly over the picnicking fans. Kids run back and forth between their blankets and the corporate tents—like the Wilson tent where youngsters hit against pitching machines—or the section of the complex where hundreds of people ages five to seventy trade pins.

  The finalists in the World Series—the West Oahu Little League of Ewa, Hawaii, and the Pabou Little League of Willemstad, Curaçao—go through their settled routines before the last game of summer.

  Vernon Isabella talks sternly to his Curaçao players. He tells them to stay focused, not make stupid mistakes, and win the title again. He speaks in Papiamentu, with a rapid-fire delivery a bit faster than a machine gun. He stands erect as his players gather in a circle around him. The kids have been told, again and again, that they need to win the game.

  Kini Enos’s home run in the third inning helped Hawaii’s team from Ewa Beach win the Little League World Series against the defending champions from Willemstad, Curaçao.

  Layton Aliviado tells his kids to hang loose. He flashes the shaka sign for the 2,359th time of the tournament. The shaka sign—thumb and pinky extended, the three middle fingers closed—is the Hawaiian symbol for “hang loose.” Everywhere you go—games, picnics, malls, even highways—Hawaiians flash the shaka sign to say everything’s going to be okay.

  “You want it, go get it,” he says in his staccato voice, a blend of deep baritone and singsong.

  A sixty-foot American flag is brought out on field for presentation of colors. Little League’s mascot, Dugout, shakes hands with the fathers and sons who recite the Little League pledges. Dugout comically places his paw over his heart during the recitation.

  A scratchy tape plays the ethereal national anthem of Curaçao—after a few beats of rock music accidentally blare over the speakers. A local group, the Vocal Jazz Quartet, performs the American anthem. The teams line up and hit each other’s fists—this generation’s version of the high five—as they line up along the base paths after introductions.

  Dugout motions the crowd to do the wave during the blaring of “I Can Move It Like This, I Can Shake Like That.” Fans do the wave, which ripples all around the stadium and onto The Hill. The public address announcer calls the Hawaii team “United States” and the Curaçao team “Caribbean,” a sly invitation for “U.S.A.! U.S.A
!” chants at any international sporting event.

  The game almost ends in the first inning.

  Sorick Liberia—who almost pitched a perfect game earlier in the tournament, giving up one lousy (but clean) double at the last possible moment against Saudi Arabia—struggles to find the strike zone and walks the first three batters.

  Long and lean, Liberia shifts his back foot on the rubber. His right leg collapses, like a loose hinge, as he takes the ball out of his glove and kicks his front foot forward. He holds the ball loosely, as if displaying a Faberge egg. He throws the ball directly overhand, at twelve o’clock. His body is a rubber band that snaps a devastating fastball and a hard curve. When he’s going well, the release looks the same for all of his pitches. But today, he’s off balance. As he throws, his front foot lands off the imaginary line between the mound and plate.

  Isabella tells Liberia, again and again, to pitch away from Hawaii’s hitters, who have earned a reputation for hacking at any pitch near the strike zone. “Go away, away, away,” Isabella says. And that’s what Liberia does. He goes to a full count on all three hitters. Hawaii’s hitters hack balls foul when the pitches come close to the zone and hold back when the pitches go too far outside.

  Later, Liberia tells me he wanted to challenge the hitters but Isabella wouldn’t let him.

  “I was actually aiming for the outside corner, but I started to go way wide,” Liberia says. “I probably would have felt better if I was allowed to throw one over the middle of the plate. Also, the umpire called a strike zone that was too small—smaller than other umpires.”

  By the second batter, Liberia loses his ability to bring the ball back near the plate. He starts aiming the ball off the plate, and soon he can’t find the plate when he wants to. The more he throws the ball outside, the more scared he gets that the Hawaiians would maul anything near the plate.