An angel in the dugout

My mother used to always say, “If someone does something nice for you or our family, be sure to remember it and be there when they need you.
Words to live by, no doubt.
So maybe the Dot, as we called her, was in some way an angel in the dugout during the 2008 state high school Connecticut baseball tournament. Let me explain.
In April 2007, when my mother passed away, I flew back to Connecticut with my eldest son, Taylor, a senior in high school at the time, for the Dot’s services. As I waited in the reception line at mom’s viewing, my father’s track team members were all present. My father has coached since 1985, and continues to do so at Jonathan Law High School in Milford, Connecticut. This is the same school where all six of us Schulte “kids” attended.
Then a yellow school bus pulled up in front of the funeral home. Clamoring off the bus was the school’s baseball team.  The boys had just finished a game and were returning in a nasty rainstorm. Wet and covered in mud and sweat and still wearing their cleats, the entire baseball team made its way through the long line of visitors and each one hugged my father offering their condolences and respectfully offered last respects to my mother.
A baseball team. A group of young men of different religious backgrounds, who, for the most part, had never met my mother, took time to lend my father and our family support when we so needed it.
This team was a nice bunch. Dirty, smelly, soaked hair, some in drenched socks instead of cleats cold and shivering. Each hand I shook was cold. Yet, each person still smiled and said all the right things.
The moment meant so much to my family and I that we often talk about their taking time in spite of the miserable weather to help carry us. It was one of those moments that stand out in my 52 years of life.
With the Jonathan Law baseball team showing such compassion, I was thrilled a year later when I learned this team had earned a trip to the Connecticut state high school baseball tournament. Its 9-11 record seeded them 20th out of the 24 qualifiers.
This team, full of good kids with big hearts went on a tear, winning five games in a row, including a semi-final win over the no. 1 seeded team in the state. In the final, my alma mater, the Lawmen (you gotta love that nick name) knocked off the no. 7 seeded team to win the school’s first-ever state baseball championship.
When Lawmen coach Dennis Sweeney was interviewed by a local newspaper, he said, “Today, we were playing on another level,” the seventh year coach, said. “It was almost spiritual. These guys are unbelievable.”
Ya know what? I think the Dot was there.
My mother was not the kind of person who would be swooping down to carry a player to make an unbelievable catch or hit. That’s not her. She’d see that as cheating.
Instead, I believe my mother was more like an angel in the dugout. She was there, perhaps whispering words of wisdom to Coach Sweeney in a pinch or offering comfort and encouragement to these boys when times were tough. I could envision my mother walking up and down the dugout unbeknownst to the players, high fiving them, giving them pats of the butt and cheering wildly when smacked the ball, ran the bases or made a great defensive play.
Finally, I could see my mother standing atop of the dugout when the Lawmen got that last out and celebrating the state title, with a wide smile.
That is how she would have done it. After all, this was the team that had been there for her mourning family. It was payback time. Good things do happen to good people…like these Lawmen.