LITTLE ROCK — If you’d been at the first few minutes of practice at Junior Deputy ballpark the other night when Bill Simpson and Don Curdie’s 12-and-under all-star team took the field, you’d have thought these guys were the Bad News Bears, not a squad that just trounced four big Northwest Arkansas all-star teams in each of six games up there.
“Coach Curdie! Coach Curdie!,” they cry, hands outstretched for a routine dispersal of Dubble Bubble gum.
Like the movie, these boys are exactly what you’d hope for in a youth-league ball club. They’re a variety of colors and heights. Some are chubby, others toothpicky. Some are quick with a buck-toothed smile, others smile only sheepishly. What they share is an unwavering enthusiasm forthe sport and being outside, and a pretty abiding allegiance to their coaches.
Gotta be Dubble Bubble, huh?
“Oh, yeah. Is there any other kind? It keeps its flavor the longest. Blows the best bubbles,” Curdie says.
After a warm-up round of catch, the 65-year-old coach gathers his charges ’round. He asks what state Mickey Mantle was from, and immediately, it’s more “Coach Curdie! Coach Curdie!” cacophony. Florida, New York, Texas, Arkansas? Oklahoma.
“Who said that?”
Connor Cline did. He’s one of the big bats who might could stand to give up his spot in line, but this ain’t Vacation Bible School. It’s baseball.
Two more questions about Stan Musial and Mike Trout - Pennsylvania and New Jersey - round out the top three. One of the kids not picked turns around to another and says, “I gotta pee anyway.”
Simpson, 63, and Curdie aren’t your ordinary volunteer coaches. For one, Curdie’s an administrative law judge at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review at the Federal Courthouse in Little Rock; Simpson is chief public defender for the 6th Judicial District. For another, they’ve been coaching a combined 90 years, give or take.
That means they’ve seen a lot of great kids, great talents. In the 1990s they brought along a young hitter who even pitched occasionally. That boy went on to make a strong contribution to the Yankees in last year’s American League Division Series without a single atbat.
“Well, we called him Allan then,” Simpson says, “but, yeah, A.J. Burnett.”
Burnett now pitches for Pittsburgh.
Another Simpson-Curdie team several years back featured a “fiery” youngster whose fastball carried the squad all the way to the Southwest Regional final in Louisiana. That fellow, Drew Smyly, is hoping to bring the same success to bear for his Detroit Tigers this year.
“He had to be throttled down sometimes,” Simpson remembers.
This particular coaching duo runs a classic good-cop-bad-cop game. Simpson dispenses discipline; Curdie, bubble gum. Curdie makes them laugh - they all say he’s funny; for instance, “Two peanuts walk into a high-crime area at night.One’s a salted ...” - while Simpson limits himself to diamond wisdom.
“‘If you make a bad play, shake it off. There’ll be other plays. You can’t carry it with you,’” recites Nathan Page of Little Rock.
Simpson says he’s “just a volunteer coach” who, despite this write-up, doesn’t shine any brighter “thanother coaches I’m sure have more longevity than I do and have accomplished more than I have,” so, if it’s all the same, he’d like to talk about what’s coming up at Junior Deputy this month.
On Friday, the state tournament kicks off. The coaches marshal their team onto the field first at 6 p.m. Friday.
It’s not rare to host the state tournament, per se, but it’s still nice. It is rare that the ballpark would be the site of the Southwest Regionals, July 19-23. It’s the first time in Simpson’s memory that “JD” has played host.
Last year, this same team won the state tournamentin the 11-and-under division. Win, lose or rain-out, this is the last year for Simpson, Curdie and these boys. Next year the young men hop up to the Babe Ruth league, and the coaches will find themselves with a new band of batsmen.
It’s always hard to repeat, he has warned the team. A public defender who has sometimes sat across from Pulaski County jail inmates that he once coached, he also tries, whenever appropriate, to keep them focused on the big picture in life.
“I try to always tell my players, play by the rules. Play by the rules, and we can live with the outcome.”
High Profile, Pages 36 on 07/01/2012