It can be fun and challenging and incredible, nerve-wracking and just plain joyous, this whole dad-son/coach-player dynamic so prominent and visible for Maine-Endwell’s unbeaten baseball machine.
Joe Mancini continues to experience the gamut of emotions. His game time during the Little League World Series experience is split between the third-base coaching box and dugout, while son Michael does his work at shortstop or on the pitcher’s mound, and in the batter’s box.
“I’m in the third-base box praying to my grandfather, ‘Please let him hit it. Please let him hit it.’” Joe said. “I’m the guy who’s up there before the game saying, ‘Hey, we’ve just got to stay in there, we’re going to be alright, don’t get nervous.’ And he’s looking at me like, ‘Nervous, for what?’ ”
So it goes not only for the Mancinis but for Scott and Conner Rush, and Joe and Jack Hopko, who’ve likewise shared not only 21 baseball victories but all else this summer’s journey has entailed for Maine-Endwell’s district, state and regional champions.
At 7:30 Wednesday night, M-E will oppose Bowling Green, Ky., in the United States winners’ bracket final.
It can be delicate at times, as a balance must be achieved on several fronts:
When to be dad and when to be coach? When to accept and give in to the fact a 12-year-old wants some space from the old man? How to come upon an understanding of expectations and communication, not only with the coaches’ own but the remainder of the 11-player unit.
“Not many fathers get the opportunity to spend the entire summer with his son because the son plays baseball,” said Scott Rush, Maine-Endwell’s head coach.
That the adults have one another upon whom to lean is greatly beneficial on both ends of the parent-child equation.
“It’s great, love it. There’s also the coach versus son aspect, which is actually nice because the three of us all have sons,” Scott Rush said. “Our sons can tend to kind of want to tune us out, Michael’s the same way and so is Jack Hopko. So we know that if we hear them starting to tune their Dad out, we’ll go over and talk to them. So we kind of all understand that balance.”
Twelve-year-old Jack Hopko, the team’s primary first baseman, treasures the bonded experience and most all that accompanies it. It’s just that, well …
“Dad can be helpful sometimes but also he can be a little bit annoying,” said young “Hoppy,” unable to suppress a chuckle while sharing. “He just tries to help me too much. I know he played baseball when he was younger, but, he always tries to help me fix my swing. It’s usually helpful, but sometimes it’s too much.”
However, Jack acknowledged, “I bet it’s hard for him because we’ve been with him for 21 games now. It’s probably hard for them to deal with all of us 11 kids.”
Inherent in the coaches’ role is the need to instruct, guide and at times inject a splash of discipline when the boys begin acting their age, as 12- and 13-year-olds are prone to do now and again — and again. Dad’s inclination is to be a tad more stern with his own, lest a hint of favoritism be detected by the rest.
“It’s cool, it’s really cool,” was how Joe Hopko summarized the opportunity. “Joe and Scott and I, we’ve coached together long enough, we really do view all these 11 kids as, they kind of all become your kids and your son kind of falls into the same column.
“We try to treat them all the same way and sometimes it’s to their detriment. You’re a little bit harder on your own kid than you would be on another kid. They get it, at this point, why we’re talking to them in a different way than we would talk to other kids.”
As Conner Rush said, “It’s just awesome because, I mean my dad is hard on me but he’s just trying to help me. It’s always good to know that I have somebody to fall back on if I need something.”
Baseball competition is a mere component of the Little League World Series experience, as any first-time visitor to the Williamsport complex quickly understands. Those couple hours of game time represent a mere fraction of the time that constitutes weeks of life lived away from home, among friends, and in the case of the Rush, Hopko and Mancini duos, together most all the while.
“It’s unbelievable. As a father you want your kids to experience the world and experience things that you’ve never experienced,” said Joe Mancini. “To be able to hang out in the grotto watching him interact with the Japan team and the Latin American team, dance with them, talk with the team that we beat Monday and watch all these other kids come over and say how good he is and everything, it’s just, it makes you want to tear up and cry.”
And, yes, he indeed shed some drops upon completion of that 3-1 victory over Goodlettsville, Tenn., in which winning pitcher Michael struck out 13 without a walk and scored twice.
“It’s just amazing, everything that you want in your kids,” the elder Mancini added. “Even seeing my other two kids here interact with Michael and Michael missing Joseph and he wanted to play catch with him because they’ve always played catch with each other in the backyard. So Joseph brought his glove with him (Monday) and Michael went up and got his glove after the game and they came down here and they let them go onto the field down here by themselves and they played catch.”
Pop Hopko values and stresses, not only to Jack but to all 11, the opportunity to be a part of a baseball gala that hundreds of thousands of their peers will only dream of experiencing.
“We try to steal a couple minutes here and there just to kind of soak it in a little bit,” he said. “Like Monday I was telling Jack, you realize you’re in the middle of the Little League World Series, you guys had a goal to get here. Take a step back and appreciate it, just look around.
“We’ve said it a couple times out on the field during the game to the kids. Take two seconds to look around. We’ve got a big crowd here, you guys are where you want to be.
“Win lose or draw, have fun with it, be a 12-year-old.”
