A week of Alpenrose magic will last a lifetime
PORTLAND, Ore. - A stogie the size of a small musical instrument dangling from his lips, an older gentleman, maybe in his mid-60s and dressed in a maroon Asia Pacific T-shirt, takes a seat at a picnic table behind a tall fence at Alpenrose Stadium. About 100 feet away, hidden by bleachers and a sea of people, ESPN cameras are rolling as a Little League Softball World Series semifinal between Latin America and the South is being played Tuesday night on a field fit for softball queens. "Isn't this something?" he asks, his cigar smoke dying into the cooling evening air. "I never get tired of it." The man, a volunteer host for the team from the Philippines, was talking about the atmosphere, the excitement, the dreams being realized. A week at Alpenrose Stadium will do that to a person, cause them to reflect, to think. The place is like a fantasy land for 11- and 12-year-olds. Umpires dance. Tony the Tiger passes out small boxes of Frosted Flakes. Peanuts and Crackerjack are replaced by curly fries and sno-cones. Here, players from other countries sing, together, their national anthems. Those same players trade pins and laughs and smiles with one another. Take home something that can't be packed in a bag and shoved in an overhead bin in some airplane. They eat ice cream and shake hands after every game. Fans, for the most part, keep their mouths shut, except when cheering for their teams or - believe it or not - the umpires. Sure, the players play. Yes, the games matter. But softball is but a small part of being in Portland this time of year. "There's a million teams out there wanting to do this," Sterling's Stephanie Kester said Wednesday after her team defeated Latin America 3-2 for third place. "And we're one of the ones here doing it. It's been a great experience to be here." Teams from far and wide will scatter, memories in tow, from Portland today, the postcard mountain views pasted to their minds. Unfamiliar accents imprinted in their brains. No amount of film or space on a memory card ever will be enough for all the Kodak moments this journey provided. Sterling spent Wednesday night at a hotel pool, swimming with their third-place game opponents from Puerto Rico. "That's extremely awesome," McKenna Pearson said. "I never imagined hanging out with a team from Puerto Rico in Portland, Oregon." The experience even inspired Jennifer Rahn to dream bigger. "I'll look back on it as the experience of a lifetime," she said. "I'm going to love telling all the stories I can. I might even try to coach a team and get them here." For Sterling's Krista Loos, the journey has been bittersweet. She's been on the sideline, right arm choked by a cast, since breaking a bone playing tag before the sectional tournament last month. Sometimes, she imagines being out there, making a big play or getting a big hit. "I've gotten used to it," she said. "But sometimes I think, 'Oh, I should be out there playing.' Or I'll see other people make a good play and think that could be me, but it's not." Loos, like her teammates, hasn't been home in almost three weeks. Her parents, though, didn't make the trip out west, and she misses them. "I'm a little bit homesick," Loos said. "But it's been a good experience, making the top three in the world, playing different teams from different countries. We'll never get to do that again." Sterling's magic didn't die in Portland. It won't die in their minds, either; instead it will live on in their minds for the rest of their lives.
