Just Call Her Mother Teresa of Connecticut

If, one day, fifteen years ago, you were on your way to work and happened to cut through a busy street where drug dealers hung out and where residents were regularly going around getting themselves shot, you might have found yourself wondering what the hell a group of 26 Caucasian kids, dressed entirely in plaid, was doing standing around in a deserted parking lot on the corner of that busy street.

And you might have thought to yourself, "Awww, poor white kids. Maybe I should throw them some bread."

But if you looked across the street, you'd have seen the Catholic elementary school these kids attended and realized that what you were witnessing was not someone's cruel idea of Reparations. What you were witnessing was a Catholic school gym class. What you were witnessing was a Catholic school baseball game.

A baseball game with no gloves.

Or bases.

Sometimes there were no bats either, but really, that was rare.

And if you continued to watch the display, you might have noticed one little girl in particular cowering behind a tall athletic looking boy and thought to yourself, "Wow, that poor little white girl must be very scared of baseballs to hide like that."

But then, on the odd occasion when one of those Catholic school kids actually hit the ball, you'd see that, even though she covered her head with her arms and ran for her life, the ball would still come directly at that little girl every time and manage to hit her, and maybe then you thought, "Wow, that poor little white girl has a good reason for being scared of baseballs. She's like a freakin' ball magnet."

And then you probably drove away and never thought of it again.

Until one day, many years later, when, at your son or grandson's little league game, you see a woman coaching the other team. And you hear her shout things to her players like "Don't swing the ball until you get into the batters' box!" and "Ooops, that was a fumble. Wait are there fumbles in baseball?", and "Touch home base!" and you'd wonder who the hell elected this woman to coach a sport she obviously knows nothing about.

But it wouldn't be until you notice her involuntarily ducking every time a ball comes in her general direction that you recognize this coach as the little girl from the school parking lot so many years ago. And you question how that little girl, who hated baseball, who never played on a baseball team outside of gym class in her entire life, who never even watched baseball on T.V. until a year ago, would volunteer to teach a pack of wild baby wolves team of rambunctious little boys how to hit and field. And you'd conclude that Catholic school had probably made her a touch crazy.

And if that was what you guessed sir, well then, you would be absolutely correct.