Summit varsity baseball team's special ride comes to end

This is about Summit High School’s varsity baseball team, but not in the way you’d expect. Yes, we had a very good season; our 17-7 record included the Mountain Division Championship of the Union County Conference. And yes, we had players with gaudy statistics who have already made all-star teams and will surely continue to be honored as the spring sports season winds down.

This is actually about loss. Not the season-ending upset we were dealt by Warren Hills in the state tournament. This is about a completely different kind of loss.

It is also about fear, but with a wonderful, heartwarming twist.

Fear is a powerful opponent. It can be motivating, but often serves to debilitate or even paralyze because what we fear - loss - can hurt us more than the joy we gain in winning.

Science backs this up. Studies suggest that psychologically, emotionally, cognitively, even physically, the intense pain of loss can be twice as great as the equivalent pleasure of gain.

No wonder, then, when we don’t ask out that person on whom we have such a huge crush, or apply for that dream job, or see the doctor about that worrisome symptom. The fear of how we would feel if the result of our efforts was negative is a more powerful influence over our actions than the joy we might feel over a positive outcome.

How easy it would be now to transition into our baseball season and talk of our efforts, as coaches, to get our players to overcome their fear of loss and play with the burdenless joy of 10-year olds in the backyard, free from worry about the pain of loss and focused only on unleashing their potential to give themselves - and their team - the best shot at winning.

Here’s where the twist comes in.

After the shock of the Warren Hills loss sunk in, and the tears started to flow, and the embraces became more intense, and everyone - 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour later - refused to leave the field, the incredible beauty of the scene began to take on a different meaning.

This was not about the loss of a game, the elimination from a tournament, the ending of a season, even. The loss these kids had feared and now mourned was of their time together as a baseball family. Sorry, Vince Lombardi, but winning for them was not the end, it was a means to an end - staying together, prolonging this experience, remaining part of this group.

The high school baseball season started this year on March 13, and for Summit High School, officially ended on May 22, 71 days later.

Take out 24 games and 12 or so days off, and you’re left with 35 days of bonding. Thirty five days of routines; gathering in the dugout before the official start of practice to greet one another and catch up on the day’s news; 35 days of warmups, stretching in a circle while teasing one another; 35 days of trash talking each other in the batting cages; 35 days of coming together at the end of practice to reaffirm our efforts, goals and mutual support.

But of course it wasn’t just those 35 days. It was years of playing together, of carpools, hanging out, deep friendships forged over shared baseball and family experiences. And now, incredibly, unbelievably, devastatingly - it was over.

A core goal of any decent coach is to make the season as much, if not more, about the journey than the destination. We tried very hard to do that. But then we beat Westfield. And we had Cranford hanging on for dear life in the 7th inning. And we won our division. And we had this great pitching staff, and fantastic defense, and kid after kid who you believed with every fiber of your being would get that timely hit when you needed it.

So if we as coaches got caught up a little bit in seeing the end as a possible rematch with Cranford, or a chance at a state sectional title, then maybe we misread our players’ fear as that of losing a game, and the associated pain that would come with it.

But standing there an hour after our last game had ended, watching this incredible group of young men tenaciously holding on to sights, sounds, smells and feelings that had defined so much of their young lives for so long, our students suddenly became our teachers, and the loss of this game and the chance for others suddenly mattered very little.

It was the journey, they were reminding us. The incredible, wonderful journey.

So to Anthony, Brett, Joe, Thomas, Wes, Tim, Spencer, Sam, Enzo, Will, Declan, Zach, Luke, Chris, Andrew, Max, T.J., Matt, Shane and our driver, Coach Zaleski, thanks for the ride.

Larry Cohen
Asst. Varsity Baseball Coach
Summit High School