It was an ordinary day. Friday morning and I had just returned from the end of my driveway with the morning newspaper. One of the first things I do, after feeding our two cats...Snickerdoodle and The Gray Lady, is to read the LNP morning newspaper. Now, I assume, since I never read it anywhere, is that LNP stands for Lancaster News Paper. If not, it should! Anyway, my three favorite parts of the newspaper are the front page that usually has all of the big news on it, the obituary page which has stories and photographs of all those who won't sadly be reading the the big news anymore, and the sports. My story today deals with the later of the three. The headline, about halfway down the page told it all...CROWNING NEW CHAMPS. Story's sub-head read "Streaks reach goal" and directly under it told how the Blue Streaks, the teams nickname, buried the memory of last year's season when they beat the team from Ephrata 11-2. Last year the team was 20-0, but lost in the quarterfinals of the league playoffs. Both my sons played for Township with my oldest son helping the team win the playoffs and making it part-way through the State playoffs before losing. Another player whom I coached years ago was a young man named Matt Kirchoff who happens to now be the head coach of Manheim Township's high school team. Matt was one of my best players years ago and led us to the Lancaster County "New Era" Championship which is the highlight of the summer season for Lancaster County baseball players. He was one of the best players I every coached during my 20 some years of coaching Little League baseball. Seems he has transferred most of his knowledge of winning baseball games to his players. Last year I went to a game at the Manheim Township field to watch my grandson Caden, who plays for neighboring Hempfield High School, when I heard someone out yell to me. It was Matt yelling and waving to me as I was watching the game. Never had the chance to visit with him after the game, but it was nice to know I still must have looked the same to him after all these years. Great to see that Matt is teaching his players some of the same things I taught to my teams from the past. So glad that Matt's teams have been so successful over the years and I'm sure his players have benefited from having someone like Matt coach them. They have a few more games to play before they can claim the State Title, but with a bit of luck they could become State Champs. Good luck to Matt and the "Blue Streaks". It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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Matt Kirchoff is on far left. |
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