Milton Little League off the chain taking on the big dogs

Cart before the horse - The Milton Majors baseball all-stars 11-12 team are in the hot mix with a puncher’s chance to get to Williamsport. There were just four teams alive as of Thursday, Aug. 11. Milton, listed as team Delaware, was set to play Pennsylvania at 7 p.m on ESPN Thursday night, Aug. 11. The winner moves on to play Washington, D.C., Friday, Aug. 12, at 7 p.m. The winner of that game plays New York Saturday, Aug. 13, for the Mid-Atlantic Championship and a trip to the Little League World series in Williamsport. Delaware lost to New York 1-0 Aug. 8, but if they reach the championship game Saturday it is winner-take-all, meaning they don’t have to beat them twice. Local fans are gorilla glued to the flat screens in bars and garages (Editor’s note: Milton Majors fell to Pennsylvania 9-5 Aug. 11). 

Round robin - The Delaware 9-10 all stars, represented by Milton, lost to Pennsylvania Aug. 6, 12-3 then came back with wins over over New York 7-5 Aug. 8, Maryland 2-1 Aug. 9 and New Jersey 10-9 Aug. 11. By virtue of beating New York and Maryland, Milton had already earned a spot in the semifinal at 5 p.m., Friday, Aug. 12, versus Pennsylvania, with a chance to play on Saturday for the Eastern Regional Championship. Try this website, https://gc.com/group-57a55302505d9e002375e58e/schedule.

Let’s get physical - A complete yearly physical is required at every level before an athlete is stamped suitable to play a sport. In past years, I’ve seen lines of young men get certified physically fit in about 50 seconds per athlete. “Turn your head and cough” was the inside joke, or should I say inseam joke? Once in awhile something would pop, like a heart murmur or high blood pressure, and the coach would put his head on a player’s chest and argue, “I don’t hear anything.” We move on in life and learn a yearly physical is good, take care of yourself and monitor your health. Prevention is better than intervention, but most people are slackers until sick, often making a lifestyle course correction in middle age, hoping to get to the finish line where elderly runners snooker one another on the home stretch in a quest for an age-group trophy. I just got a call from a scheduler at Mid-Atlantic Family Practice that my doctor, Jeff Heckert - longtime friend - wanted me to schedule a wellness checkup with a nurse practitioner. I thought of the Stevie Wonder lyric, “Don’t go playing doctor with that nurse.” Then I got paranoid, “Does Heckert know something about me that I don’t?” Here’s the kicker, Medicare no longer covers yearly physicals for the aging baby boomer generation because they get too many physicals, and anyway nurse practitioners are a smart and highly educated professional class, but if Nurse Jackie slips on one rubber glove, I am moon walking out the door like Michael Jackson.

Stay local and stay out - Back when this People in Sports column, sometimes known as “My Little Article,” ran in the Whale newspaper, an up-the-flow-chart supervisor sent word down to Lewes to “tell Dave Frederick to keep it local.” My response was, “I am a local columnist, so anywhere I go is local for the readers.” A recent curt criticism from a reader via email, “Why is the column all about you ... SAD.” I consider all criticisms somewhat justified, but after 34 years I’ve concluded that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, all you can do is run him out of the yard. I wonder if anyone ever told Mike Royko, Studs Turkel or Sandy Grady to stay out of their own column. But alas, I am at times the target of the 50-cent critic.  

Snippets - Three things happen in mid-August here in coastal Delaware. The tides run stronger, surf goes from flat to formidable, and college athletes start heading back to school with an awareness that if they want an endless summer lifestyle they should become teachers and come back and work at the beach. It’s a two-race weekend as usual, the inaugural Kids Fund 5K at Que Pasa in Dewey is set for Saturday, Aug. 13, and the Greene Turtle 5K and 10K in Lewes will go off Sunday, Aug. 14. I’ll be there practicing photography. High school practices begin Monday, Aug. 15. Check websites4sports.com for schedules and scrimmages. Go on now, git!