| A lot of fan focus will be on the pitching for the next nine days of the ISC World Tournament and the ISC II Tournament of Champions. Others will praise the power, some will see speed as the prize. Me? I"ll be zeroing in on the duties of the batboys. That was my attention target over four decades ago, when the world fastpitch tournament was held at Douglas Park in Rock Island. I was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old, in the mid-1960s. I can remember that world tournament as if it was yesterday. I was a world tournament batboy. It was a world-class competition among 8- to 10-year-olds back then. We"d check out the teams warming up, and try to take dibs on the one or ones we thought would go the farthest. Then you"d have to convince the team"s manager that you were the right kid for the job of running after bats and keeping them straight on the rack. |
