When the bleachers are empty, the concessions stands are closed and the television cameras are off, the youngsters of the Little League World Series get together and just play ball.
No one keeps statistics. No one cries after strikeouts. No one cheers except parents.
"It feels totally different," said Dante Bichette Jr., a shortstop and pitcher for the team from Maitland, Florida. "It feels like a regular Little League game."
PHOTO: AFP
It is called a Friendship Game, pitting teams that have been eliminated from the Little League World Series and do not want to go home yet. Players approach each other in the dormitories -- usually at the swimming pool, the video arcade or the ping-pong table -- and ask if they want to throw the ball around. The adults take care of the details.
On Friday afternoon, while formal news conferences were held at Lamade Stadium in advance of Saturday's International and US championship games, the team from Maitland and the team from Valencia, Venezuela, played for nothing at the adjacent Volunteer Stadium.
Maitland was knocked out of the Series on Wednesday and Valencia was eliminated Tuesday, but they were sticking around, regardless of school schedules.
Anybody who did not pitch for Maitland during the World Series took a turn on the mound. Anybody who wanted to play a different position had his chance. Anybody who did not receive enough at-bats early in the week had his swings.
After Maitland lost 13-1, outfielder and first baseman Eddie Abramson thanked manager Sid Cash for letting him pitch.
"Our guys were laughing on the bench today," Cash said. "That was a little different."
The two teams walked side by side to the stadium. The public address announcer did his best impersonation of an ESPN anchor. Dan Moroff and Eric Kovar, fathers of Maitland players, were finally able to watch the action from the stands instead of retreating to the hillside beyond the outfield fence.
"We had a regular pulse today," Moroff said.
When Valencia's Richard Alvarez Jr. clubbed a home run in the first inning, he celebrated with a slow-motion trot around the bases. A few days ago, a national television audience might have scolded him for poor sportsmanship. But on this afternoon, devoid of attention and buzz, everybody just laughed.
"Maybe for parents, the game is over now," said Victor Alvarez, uncle of Richard Alvarez Jr. and founder of the Valencia team. "But it's not over for the kids."
Victor Alvarez is the only member of Valencia's traveling party who speaks English; otherwise, this matchup might have been difficult to arrange. Early in the week, players from Maitland and Valencia swapped T-shirts. They traded pins. They hoped to meet at some point in the tournament. But because international teams and US teams are kept in different pools, they could only play if they advanced to Sunday's final. A Friendship Game was the next best thing.
"When kids are with kids, they invent ways to communicate," said James Kriner, one of Valencia's hosts, also known as uncles. "It works just as long as the adults aren't around."
After the players shook hands Friday, the Maitland team gathered outside its dugout and faced the two most renowned assistant coaches in Little League, the former major leaguers Dante Bichette and Mike Stanley.
"We got a good lesson today," said Abramson, who had his chance to pitch for Maitland. "We treated this game like it didn't count. Venezuela treated it like the championship. It was cool to see a different perspective, to see kids from another part of the world who always play hard no matter the situation."
Carol Zysset, the Maitland host who is also known as "the only aunt," has plenty of experience dealing with defeat. She recalled that when players from Bainbridge Island, Washington, wept openly after they were eliminated from the 2001 World Series, she asked them, "What do you want to do tomorrow?" They responded almost in unison, "Play baseball."
That was the year the Friendship Games began. Before Volunteer Stadium was built in 2001, teams wanting to play extra hardball were taken to sandlots around town to thump local Little Leaguers.
Now, they compete against each other in full uniform, with umpires, chalk lines and scoreboard. Maitland players, who already look like miniature major leaguers handing batting gloves and elbow pads to their first-base coach, fit right into the backdrop.
They act more like 12-year-olds when they are back at the International Grove, a cluster of four dormitories behind the right-field fence at Lamade Stadium; it is kept off-limits to parents.
Each dorm houses four teams, two from the US and two from international teams, another attempt to foster communication. Players sleep in bunk beds and hang flags on their walls. Pinball machines and video games are free. Ice cream is served with every meal.
Those who lose in Williamsport learn quickly about the upshot of elimination. Some sleep until noon. Others spend all day at the swimming pool. They do not have to take batting practice. They do not have to take infield practice. They simply go to the park when they want, and play.
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