A Story From Little League Baseball

A Story From Little League Baseball

I've decided to go off topic this month. I have permission from the Shecky Editors to occasionally stray from the purpose of this column. Also, I recently found out that on December 20th, I will be taping an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. It's the best news I've ever gotten in the world of comedy. And I would rather wait until after the taping and report about the experience in its entirety. (see January 2002 Shecky). The show will air on either the 20th or the 21st of December so mark your calendars. And now, here's an off topic story from my childhood.

° ° ° ° °

I grew up in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and played Little League Baseball. Little League games were played five nights a week but any given team was only scheduled to play on two of those nights. So that meant that on the off nights when your particular team wasn't playing, you could go by to the park and hang out and watch the other games.

One of the league umpires was a big husky guy with wire-rimmed glasses named Elmer. This guy dressed in full umpire regalia and he really got into the calling of balls and strikes. I mean he got into it like this was the major leagues and belted out his balls and strikes at full volume. "Steee riii hoooooh" was a strike and "Baaaawwwww" was a ball. And his name was Elmer. You put all this together and you got yourself a situation where a couple of 12 year old kids with plenty of idle time on their hands could do something to really needle this guy. He was the perfect target.

It started out innocently enough. My friend Jimmy Swan and I would sit up on the hill behind home plate and occasionally yell out the name Elmer. That's all. We would just yell out the name Elmer. It's just one of those names. We would yell it good and loud. ELMER!

We could have left it at that but we didn't. We took it a step further. I don't know which one of us thought of it but at some point we decided to yell out his name but this time I would yell the EL part and Jimmy would follow up with the MER part. It sounded really cool and we couldn't stop doing it. EL-MER. EL-MER. We would work on the timing and delivery. Sometimes I would drag out the ELLLLLL and Jimmy would pause in just the right way and follow up with a short, loud and to the point MER. ELLLLL - MER! It cracked us up every single time. And not only us but anyone else that was within earshot of us. We were starting to build an audience. And then Elmer made a fatal flaw. He let it show that it bothered him. He turned around one time and looked at us sitting up on the hill and said, "Alright you kids. That's enough." That one move totally validated our summer project.

There was a part of me that felt bad about what we were doing but another part of me just couldn't get past how much fun all of this was. We kept coming up with variations on the theme and they were too good pass up. We would go to the park some nights hoping that Elmer was behind the plate. We got pretty creative. At one point, we decided to spread out. I would go and sit on the hill that ran along the third base line and Jimmy Swan would sit along the hill that ran along the first base line. And we'd synchronize our yells. I would yell EL and then from about two hundred feet away Jimmy would chime in with a perfectly timed MER. Sometimes we'd switch and he would be the EL and I would be the MER.

Elmer knew what we were doing but there wasn't much he could do about it. We could just claim it was a coincidence and deny that we were working together. Not that it would ever come to that but just in case it did, it was nice to know that we both had plausible deniability. "Hey, I'm just sittin' here on the hill all by myself yelling EL." "Hey, I'm just sittin' up here on the hill all by myself yelling MER." It must've driven him crazy. It was bad enough that those kids up on the hill were yelling his name. And it got even worse when they started doing it in that annoying synchronized yell. But now he had to be hearing it in stereo as if the speakers were spread out two hundred feet apart. It probably had some kind of a Pink Floyd Us and Them feel to it. (El El El El El El El El and Mer Mer Mer Mer Mer and after all we're only ordinary men.)

There was no way he could deny how clever our scheme was and he knew that he was in for a long summer. It was one of those unsolvable problems that sometimes get lobbed your way. It was so perfectly diabolical and so perfectly designed to get under his skin. "Why Me?" he must have asked himself a million times. It was one of those problems that was almost impossible to explain to anyone else. He probably had to go home after a game and try to explain it to his wife, which probably made it even worse. She would say, "What's wrong Elmer? You just haven't been yourself these days?" And Elmer would say, "Well, it's these kids, they're starting to drive me crazy. One kid sits up on the hill on the 1st base side and another kid sits on the hill along the third base side and they each yell a different syllable of my name." And she would say, "What are you talking about?" And he would have to explain it again in all of its excruciating detail. "Ya see one kid yells EL and the other kid yells MER and it's perfectly timed and it's all I can think about when I'm trying to focus on the game." "Oh, now Elmer, you're probably just imagining the whole thing. Just ignore them." Just ignore them? That was impossible.

He must've gotten ready for games and prayed to God. "Please God let those 2 kids not be there tonight." But of course, we were almost always there. And we always had a new twist. One time I walked right by the wire mesh backstop that was behind home plate and from about ten feet away let out a big EL. And I left it at that. That's all he heard was the EL. But he knew that a MER was on the way. "Damn these kids. Where the hell is the MER?" he must've been thinking. And almost a full minute later Jimmy walked by and yelled MER. It was perfectly executed.

EL-MER was basically getting picked on and verbally bullied by two twelve-year-old kids. He was about 60 years old and we were getting to him. It was as cruel as I've ever been and I still feel a little bad about it to this day. How could we have been so mean? I hope I run into him in the afterlife so I can apologize. Hey, Mr. Elmer I'm really SOR-RY. He would know exactly who I was and exactly what I meant.

And by the way, we were doing all of this years before those Budweiser Frogs were doing the same thing by splitting up the Bud Wei and Ser syllables. Every time I see those ads I think that somewhere among those Little League spectators was a future Advertising Executive who stole our idea. We were way ahead of our time.

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	A Story From Little League Baseball I've decided to go off topic this month. I have permission from the Shecky Editors to occasionally stray from the purpose of this column. Also, I recently found out that on December 20th, I will be taping an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. It's the best news I've ever gotten in the world of comedy. And I would rather wait until after the taping and report about the experience in its entirety. (see January 2002 Shecky). The show will air on either the 20th or the 21st of December so mark your calendars. And now, here's an off topic story from my childhood. ° ° ° ° ° I grew up in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and played Little League Baseball. Little League games were played five nights a week but any given team was only scheduled to play on two of those nights. So that meant that on the off nights when your particular team wasn't playing, you could go by to the park and hang out and watch the other games. One of the league umpires was a big husky guy with wire-rimmed glasses named Elmer. This guy dressed in full umpire regalia and he really got into the calling of balls and strikes. I mean he got into it like this was the major leagues and belted out his balls and strikes at full volume. "Steee riii hoooooh" was a strike and "Baaaawwwww" was a ball. And his name was Elmer. You put all this together and you got yourself a situation where a couple of 12 year old kids with plenty of idle time on their hands could do something to really needle this guy. He was the perfect target. It started out innocently enough. My friend Jimmy Swan and I would sit up on the hill behind home plate and occasionally yell out the name Elmer. That's all. We would just yell out the name Elmer. It's just one of those names. We would yell it good and loud. ELMER! We could have left it at that but we didn't. We took it a step further. I don't know which one of us thought of it but at some point we decided to yell out his name but this time I would yell the EL part and Jimmy would follow up with the MER part. It sounded really cool and we couldn't stop doing it. EL-MER. EL-MER. We would work on the timing and delivery. Sometimes I would drag out the ELLLLLL and Jimmy would pause in just the right way and follow up with a short, loud and to the point MER. ELLLLL - MER! It cracked us up every single time. And not only us but anyone else that was within earshot of us. We were starting to build an audience. And then Elmer made a fatal flaw. He let it show that it bothered him. He turned around one time and looked at us sitting up on the hill and said, "Alright you kids. That's enough." That one move totally validated our summer project. There was a part of me that felt bad about what we were doing but another part of me just couldn't get past how much fun all of this was. We kept coming up with variations on the theme and they were too good pass up. We would go to the park some nights hoping that Elmer was behind the plate. We got pretty creative. At one point, we decided to spread out. I would go and sit on the hill that ran along the third base line and Jimmy Swan would sit along the hill that ran along the first base line. And we'd synchronize our yells. I would yell EL and then from about two hundred feet away Jimmy would chime in with a perfectly timed MER. Sometimes we'd switch and he would be the EL and I would be the MER. Elmer knew what we were doing but there wasn't much he could do about it. We could just claim it was a coincidence and deny that we were working together. Not that it would ever come to that but just in case it did, it was nice to know that we both had plausible deniability. "Hey, I'm just sittin' here on the hill all by myself yelling EL." "Hey, I'm just sittin' up here on the hill all by myself yelling MER." It must've driven him crazy. It was bad enough that those kids up on the hill were yelling his name. And it got even worse when they started doing it in that annoying synchronized yell. But now he had to be hearing it in stereo as if the speakers were spread out two hundred feet apart. It probably had some kind of a Pink Floyd Us and Them feel to it. (El El El El El El El El and Mer Mer Mer Mer Mer and after all we're only ordinary men.) There was no way he could deny how clever our scheme was and he knew that he was in for a long summer. It was one of those unsolvable problems that sometimes get lobbed your way. It was so perfectly diabolical and so perfectly designed to get under his skin. "Why Me?" he must have asked himself a million times. It was one of those problems that was almost impossible to explain to anyone else. He probably had to go home after a game and try to explain it to his wife, which probably made it even worse. She would say, "What's wrong Elmer? You just haven't been yourself these days?" And Elmer would say, "Well, it's these kids, they're starting to drive me crazy. One kid sits up on the hill on the 1st base side and another kid sits on the hill along the third base side and they each yell a different syllable of my name." And she would say, "What are you talking about?" And he would have to explain it again in all of its excruciating detail. "Ya see one kid yells EL and the other kid yells MER and it's perfectly timed and it's all I can think about when I'm trying to focus on the game." "Oh, now Elmer, you're probably just imagining the whole thing. Just ignore them." Just ignore them? That was impossible. He must've gotten ready for games and prayed to God. "Please God let those 2 kids not be there tonight." But of course, we were almost always there. And we always had a new twist. One time I walked right by the wire mesh backstop that was behind home plate and from about ten feet away let out a big EL. And I left it at that. That's all he heard was the EL. But he knew that a MER was on the way. "Damn these kids. Where the hell is the MER?" he must've been thinking. And almost a full minute later Jimmy walked by and yelled MER. It was perfectly executed. EL-MER was basically getting picked on and verbally bullied by two twelve-year-old kids. He was about 60 years old and we were getting to him. It was as cruel as I've ever been and I still feel a little bad about it to this day. How could we have been so mean? I hope I run into him in the afterlife so I can apologize. Hey, Mr. Elmer I'm really SOR-RY. He would know exactly who I was and exactly what I meant. And by the way, we were doing all of this years before those Budweiser Frogs were doing the same thing by splitting up the Bud Wei and Ser syllables. Every time I see those ads I think that somewhere among those Little League spectators was a future Advertising Executive who stole our idea. We were way ahead of our time. close this window to return to the Tom Ryan writing page SHECKY! A magazine about standup... http://www.sheckymagazine.com ©Copyright 1999 Independent Together Brian McKim & Traci Skene Comics\Writers\Producers