Exhilarating opening night of tee-ball
By Jimmy Chesire
Yellow Springs News - June 4, 2004

I should have known when I saw the sheriff coming up my drive.

Jimmy Chesire, a Perry League Organizer leading a group of tee-ball players

"You Jimmy Chesire, the tee-ball guy?"

"Yes, officer, I am. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I’m sorry, but I have a warrant for your arrest. And warrants for Chris Murphy, Adrienne Chesire, Margaret Hackett, a guy named Winston whose last name we didn’t get, an Uncle Louie ‘The Hammer,’ a Grandpa Doug Rodgers, a Melanie Willis — Kori’s grandmother, we think — a Branson Pyles and about 60 other lunatic adults."

"What!?"

"We’ve had a complaint. A series of complaints, actually," the sheriff says, his badge gleaming brightly in the morning sun.

"That real gold?" I ask.

"Don’t try to sidetrack me. I’m here to take you in for disturbing the peace, for causing a ruckus, for exhilarating children and generating entirelytoo much good cheer."

"It isn’t me, officer, it’s the children——"Adrienne Chesire comes to the door.

Yellow Springs News Photo

"You the young woman seen frolicking zestfully, full of friskiness and sunshine last night out to Gaunt Park?"
"What?"

"Hollering and carrying-on? Making a calamitous ruckus? Jumping about, falling down, doing the splits? And in general just carrying on like a madwoman?"

"You mean," I ask, "us being delighted by Grant Reigelsperger, 6, wondering on the first night of play where the trophies are." (Which we will give out on the final night of play, Aug. 6).

Adrienne

"Or me fussing," Adrienne says, "about little Sage Wolfe and Julia Tarpey running into each other, colliding like cymbals, knocking each other, kaboom! to the ground?"

"Or us laughing at the boy who chastised his mother for her meager contribution to last

year’s final-night potluck, clearly demanding more from her this year when he asked her, ‘You gonna bake this year or only bring chips?’ "

"Or us being charmed by Joshua Seitz telling us, ‘I have hundreds of trophies because my brother [Eli] gave me all of his but one.’ "

"Or is it because we’re too enthused about Weymar Osborne always having to climb the huge, overarching backstop behind home plate before he came to bat?"

"That," the sheriff says, "and the fact that there’s entirely too muchsweetness out there, too much playfulness, too much happiness. It ain’t right. It just ain’t right."

"No?"

"No, it ain’t. Too many kids hugging coaches, too many kids getting so giddy, so lit up, they may as well be on fire."

"You mean like the beautiful and irrepressible Caroline Chase, 7, her two front teeth missing, joyfully badgering us, begging us, cajoling us to let her blow our whistle?"

"Yes," the sheriff says, "and that Jacob Woodburn, the mud puddle boy, nearly levitating with merriment as he tried to wrench the ball from your hand at the end there, squealing joyously as you chased him around and around his grandfather, Jamie."

"Or little 2-year-old Zenya Hoff-Miyazaki," Adrienne says, "the very thoughtful, handsome little boy transported to a moment of near-miraculous revelation the first time he got his hands on the ball, ignoring his joyous father Kurt’s repeated entreaties to ‘Throw the ball to the coach! Throw the ball to the coach, throw the ball!"

"That’s it," the sheriff says. "Too much exultation. Too much triumph. Too much raucous undiluted happiness. Too much whoopee and hoopla. So, I’m afraid I’ll have to take you in."

"But," we protest, "we’re Perry League, the Yellow Springs tee-ball program welcoming all the community’s children, girls and boys ages 2 to 9, regardless of their race, color or creed."

"The law’s the law," the sheriff says, throwing the cuffs on me. "Thy cup runneth over."

As the sheriff takes us away, Adrienne whips out her cellphone to call our attorneys, Baffled, Baffled, Confused & Mortified. Mr. Barton Best-Left Baffled and his partner Ms. Marguerite Maligned & Morose Mortified assure us they’ll spring us in time for Friday night’s game, June 11, 6:30–8, at Gaunt Park. Why don’t-cha come on out and see if you can’t stir up a little exultation of your own?