Instilling That Mvp Attitude

I TELL THE KIDS I AM THE MANAGER OF THIS TEAM. I make the decisions on their Little League futures. I will say who plays during this coming season. I will say who doesn't play. I will run the game from my seat at the end of the bench. I am in charge.

"What do you say?" I ask.

"Kiss my butt," the kids reply.

I like this.

I have been talking for an hour, maybe an hour and a half, trying to instill greatness in these grade-schoolers I have selected in the annual league draft. The old-timers say that greatness cannot be taught, that it is a gift from the heavens. I disagree. I think every one of these kids can be another Barry Bonds, the Pittsburgh Pirate who was last season's Most Valuable Player in the National League.

"Suppose the owner of the paint store that sponsors our team comes to visit," I say. "This is the man who has bought the uniforms and will pay for the annual end-of-season pizza party, soft drinks included. Suppose he stands here and gives a little pep talk about hustle and team loyalty and always trying to go for the extra base. What do you say?"

"Kiss my butt," the kids reply.

Lovely.

I had opened the meeting by showing some tapes of Bonds on my VCR. I had shots of him running, hitting, fielding, making all sorts of magic moves during his magic 1990 season. I asked the kids if they wanted to play the way he played for Pittsburgh. Of course they all said they did. I then showed the tapes of a week ago, the ones that were on newscasts everywhere as Bonds screamed at photographers, Pirate public relations man Jim Lachimia, coach Bill Virdon and, finally, manager Jim Leyland. I even had the kids count the number of bleeps during the exchanges.

There were considerable snickers and giggles from the kids, which I expected, because most of them are young and new to this great game. I silenced the noise by slamming the blackboard. I said this was serious. On the board I wrote the equation ATTITUDE = GREATNESS. I asked if anyone knew what this meant. One kid said he thought it meant that the better attitude a player had, the better he would be as a player. I winged the eraser at him. Another kid said he thought it meant that if you worked hard every day, ate the right foods, got eight hours of sleep and devoted yourself to baseball, you could become great. Him, I hit with the chalk. No one else answered.