Living On Scrapper Time In 2023

by Kevin Burton

   Got a call I really, really needed May. 20. It got my juices flowing again.

   Which juices? My beep baseball and competition juices.

   Yes, let this serve as the official announcement: I have unretired from the sport of beep baseball again, this time to play for the Cleveland Scrappers.

   Beep baseball players “retire” the way boxers do: temporarily. You hear a beepball player say he or she is retiring after the World Series, don’t buy it.  Those juices are going to flow again. There just isn’t anything like beep baseball.

    So I am going back to the familiar game and to the greater beepball family.

   Why would I do such a thing at my advanced age? I have my reasons, my motivations, but I won’t get to the bottom of them in this post.

   The call I mentioned? That was from Scrappers pitcher Nathan Weigand. He was driving home from a practice in Cleveland and he proceeded to give me a rundown on the team and all its possibilities.

   That call pumped life into my workouts and got me thinking like in the old days. Beep baseball was the major pastime for me for years.  Everything else fit into my life around beep baseball.

   The silliest, most embarrassing example of that? I once contemplated going to seminary to become an apologist, one who offers scholarly arguments, making the case for God and the Bible and salvation through Jesus Christ.

   In my search I considered only schools that were located in cities which also had a beep baseball team. I was focused on Dallas Seminary and something or other in Chicago, probably Moody.

   How’s that for priorities?  

   The seminary thing never got off the ground for me, but beepball did. You could say I was all in for beepball, but really I would have had to dial it back a touch to be all in.  I was psycho for beep baseball.

   Now life is different, more complicated, rooted in unbending realities, some of them harsh. I was having a tough time re-introducing beep baseball into the mix. Living in Kansas, I can’t practice regularly with the Scrappers. So Nathan’s call was essential to launching me into  the 2023 season.

   Two years ago I played for the one-and-done USA Legends, a team put together with players from the old Columbus Vipers and other friends from around the league. That was such a positive experience that I sought out a spot on the Cleveland roster when I heard Columbus teammates Rob Weigand and Dan Kelley would be playing for Cleveland and Rob’s son Nathan would be the pitcher.

   It doesn’t look as if Rob will play, but at least he’ll be around at some of the games. This is still a bit of a reunion tour. It will be fun.

   Fun. What a concept. I have pretty much forgotten how to have fun because of Covid. Between the quarantines, shortages and learning to see people as first a threat, I’m not the same as I was before  It will take a while to crawl out of that mindset, if indeed I ever can.

   I’m asking beep baseball to put some fun into my life. It’s never let me down before. In turn I hope to honor the game and make a positive contribution to the Scrappers.

   I hope to have fun but I will be playing to win as always. If you see me on the treadmill and ask what I’m doing I’ll say, “I’m pursuing a world championship.” That’s how I am wired.

   I am not the player I used to be, but whatever is left in the tank, they will get 100 percent of it.

   The Scrappers had a call on zoom earlier this spring to talk about plans for the season. When some players didn’t arrive for the meeting on time, somebody – I think it was Cleveland coach Jeff Dell – referred to being on “Scrapper Time.” By context I figured out that means being fashionably late.

   Remember, I’m the guy who coached Wichita with just three rules; be on time pay attention and play hard when I ask you to. 

   So now Mr. Be On Time is on Scrapper Time. Oops!

    But that is just a passing laugh for me now.  The game is the same but many things are different. I am just grateful to have a place on the team. Scrapper Time is right on time!

   My formative years in the game came as a Columbus player, battling Cleveland. It was a friendly rivalry, nothing like the stories I hear about Chicago teams brawling in the old days.   So it will be an honor for me to put on a Scrapper uniform for the first time June 3 at Indianapolis.