The Mythical Boys Of Red Land, Pennsylvania: Little League World Series 2015

The land for as far as the eye can see is painted red.

Throngs upon throngs of men, women, children, infants, of the elderly, of those in wheelchairs, swarm about the periphery of the field, almost all dressed in red.

The bleachers are filled, as is the concourse, as is the steep, massive slope stretching for a hundred yards beyond the outfield, with tens of thousands of the cult of Red Land.

Low chants churn in the belly of the massed assemblage.

“This is like a rock concert,” says one passerby.

The chants grumble louder like something being manufactured within the inner workings of a vast industrial machine. They gather force as they collect from the concourse, from the hillside, from the grandstand, from the dugout, from the port-a-potty, from the sloping green ridge towering in the horizon above the stands.

“Let’s go Red Land, da da dada da....Let’s go Red Land….”

The infield dust shines golden in the sun.

***

Every year in late August, the sleepy town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania undergoes a 10-day makeover.

Cars are parked in the bushes and on the shoulder along Route 15 for up to a mile outside of town. Some are swerved sideways into the hillsides along the road, as if parked in a frenetic rush.

Chairs cover the lawns of one story homes.

Families gather on front porches.

Children run along the streets, most of them with ball caps and leather mitts, calling to each other and playing catch over lines of stilled traffic.

Impromptu stands on street corners, in empty parking lots, in the shade of massive oaks, sell Krispy-Kreme Donuts, lemonade, bottled water, toys, trinkets.

Coming closer to the Little League headquarters and the center of town, crude hand-drawn signs are tacked to trees, utility poles, propped up in the dirt:

“t-shirts this way”

“FREE parking”

“$20 parking”

“THE CHEAPEST fresh Krispy-Kreme here”

Cars are parked on lawns. Lots upon lots pass by with cones blocking the entrance. An exhausted usher waves orange flags down the road to the next usher, who waves orange flags down the road to the next usher.

From most places in Williamsport, the ESPN broadcast announced over the public address system can be heard.

It’s like this every year, a moving carnival centered on a diamond in the middle of the seat of Lycoming County in Central Pennsylvania.

But this year, it’s different.

There’s more of everything. More cars. More people. More traffic. More chairs on lawns, more parking lots full, more

Tacked amidst the signs for parking and food are signs supporting the undeniable home team, less than a hundred miles south down the Susquehanna River, that’s hoping to become the first national champion from Pennsylvania in a quarter of a century.

Closer to the stadium, in the endless fields of grass lots and dusty roads and hastily abandoned vehicles, there is the ping of a metal bat and a ground-shaking roar.

***

Red Land has put two runners on base. It is the bottom of the sixth, the score is tied 2-2, and the crowd on the long grass slope behind the outfield is on their feet.

Little League is a faster game of baseball than professional baseball. Batters are overeager. Pitchers have less control. But talent is less fixed and breakouts can occur at any point, making games are wildly unpredictable.

Since the tournament began, Red Land is 20-0.

There is a certain confidence that flows through the crowd, as flows through a group of people who have gone through the shared trial of being but helpless witness to an event whose outcome teeters precariously.

Day after day, week after week, they watch Little League roulette, like watching a dime spinning on its side, hoping it lands Red side up.

Perhaps this is why there is also a kind of madness infusing the Red Land faithful, madness in the elderly woman with her head bowed and her hands folded in pure benediction, madness in the line of teenagers who pocket their cellphones and stand slackjawed on tiptoe for a glimpse of their 12-year-old heroes, madness in the neighboring stadium where there is no other game, yet a few thousand sit out of sight of the action to suffuse themselves in the glow of a historic thing.

Within the crowd, fans ask each other questions about the fundamentals of the game. What is an inning. What is an out.

It is a mass that seems to have little interest in baseball, or sports, or youth sports, or cheering.

Yet with each ball of strike in favor of the home team, they cheer raucously.

On the diamond, Marco Gutierrez of Pearland fires a fastball high and away. Red Land hero Cole Wagner chases it. Then he chases the same pitch again.

Then Gutierrez fires a fastball on the corner, and a hush: strike three.

The thing is the essence of a childhood dream. Each swing, each pitch, clamors for a spot in eternity.

A baby is fed by a bottle. Wagner smacks his bat on dirt on his way back to the dugout.

Nearby, a woman holds a toddler up above the crowd so she can see the tiny specks of players on the field.

When she grows tired, she hands the toddler off to the man standing beside her. He too raises the cheering girl above his head. She erupts with squealing delight when the field comes into her sight as she’s held into the sky.

“Red Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!” she cries.

The sense of momentum which the team has on television, in the headlines, in the box score, is apotheosized in Lamade Stadium by the madness. They are a cult following, groupies, mesmerized apostles called forth to witness an inevitable miracle that plays itself out on a golden summer diamond without fail.

During their 20-0 tournament run, when the game is close, Red Land wins.

Usually it’s not close.

Red Land’s Chayton Krauss steps into the box and taps the plate.

Gutierrez rears back and fires.

Everyone stands.

The field is out of sight for most of the crowd save for the tallest. In between the baby’s large head and the mother’s shoulder the movement of the pitcher is caught: the flash of a distant arm in the summer sun on a tiny screen.

There is a moment of waiting, then, as the ball travels out of sight from the mound to the plate.

There is a sudden collective intake of breath, a sudden cessation of conversation.

A girl breaks off mid-sentence trying to explain extra innings.

The tall spires of the grandstand watch and above them the crests of the mountains watch.

Then, out of sight: a fateful ping of Red Land aluminum sings out like a battle cry.

The roar that wells up seems almost to come before the ball is hit, as if the crowd knew all along.

***

It’s a single to right field for Krauss.

Final score: Red Land 3, Pearland 2.

Some 24 hours later Red Land would lose the international championship to a team from Tokyo, Japan.

The 18-11 loss was their first since their journey to the tournament began earlier in the summer. They won 20 consecutive games against the best teams in Pennsylvania, the mid-Atlantic region, and the entire United States.

That loss, however, will go down in history as an afterthought.