The Montauk Hammerhead Building team trounced the Amagansett Fire Department in Little League action on Monday. I should know; I was among the spectators at Lions Field trying to keep warm as a chilly westerly wind blew in off the ocean. In an email to parents earlier in the day, the Amagansett coaches had told us to dress warmly. No one dressed warmly enough, especially on the visitors’ side of the field.
Montauk apparently believes that there is no Covid-19 there; few if any of the crowd of parents and siblings on their side of the field, more protected from the wind, I should add, wore masks. The local Little League organization took note, apparently, and issued a reminder, via email, on Tuesday that there was still a pandemic on.
By about the third brutal inning, I discovered that the field was more sheltered and warmer on the parking lot side, that is, in the lee of the Montauk Brewery. Not that it was balmy over there, but instead of shivering with a cold butt on the aluminum bleacher seats, I stretched out down the right-field foul line.
Jason Biondo, the coach and sponsor of the Montauk team, was enjoying a laugher. His starting pitcher was throwing fire, and our Amagansett boys scarcely got a hit. After the game, I overheard Biondo telling his team that they had sent a message to the rest of the league.
“Those guys thought they were coming here to beat you,” he said. There was some grousing on our, losing, side about the grade level of some of the Montauk players, but, in truth, they were all sharp and practiced in every position.
I was glad that I had seen the game from my isolated spot in right field. It must have been a grim, gray monkey of a day on the visitors’ bench.