By Jackie Gentile
Special to the Reporter

"C'mon!"

"Yeah! All right, Mikey!"

No, the cheers aren't for overpaid major league players, whose egos are as big as the doses of steroids they've been taking to break league records.

"Everybody pay attention!"

There are ten players on the field and the bases are loaded…as usual. People run across the outfield with no worries of getting themselves thrown off the premises. There isn't a park in the ball field's name, but the closest one is just down the path through the trees. This is a place where a ball hit just beyond second base is practically a home run. There are no big names here. The big endorsers are not Coca-Cola and Budweiser but "Maureen Connolly Insurance" and "St. Brendan's Parish," which are emblazoned on the players' shirts, not their last names.

Number one on the gray-shirted team announces his arrival to his first-base post with a handstand to rival Ozzie Smith's back flips as an outfielder sports camouflage pants as part of his uniform.

It's almost summertime and Dorchester's Little League baseball season has just gotten underway. On Saturday, Savin Hill baseball launched its season with a parade from the Little House to McConnell playground.

And, the Cedar Grove little league,which dates back to 1960, continued its season, which started in late April. The Cedar Grove league includes T-Ball Saturdays for the smallest players at Dorchester Park. Minor and major divisions play at McMorrow park (behind the Murphy School) and Ventura Park (near Lower Mills). And the Cedar Grove senior division plays at the baseball diamond in Dorchester Park. Games for all divisions are played most week nights and on the weekend.

Last Saturday at Dot Park's "bowl" on Adams Street, pint-sized players were as eager to take to the field, as their parents were eager to watch them on a beautiful spring day.

"Sometimes there's a little difficult maintaining concentration and he's off chasing butterflies in the outfield," said Elise Henricks. Her son, Max, plays for the gold team sponsored by Remax and Craig & Anne Galvin, or just simply the Tigers as he corrected.

She has been in Dorchester for seven years and says that the family has "by osmosis become baseball fans." Love for the Red Sox, of course, tends to permeate throughout Greater Boston and the Henricks family is no exception.

"I'm not originally from Boston, but being here, you sort of absorb the Red Sox," she said.

Besides Little League's benefits of exercise and fresh air, Dorchester has offered good things for Henricks.

"It has a very great neighborhood…everybody looks out for everyone else."

Another benefit for her son, she says, is that "They see their classmates from school, so it's a social thing, too."

Max also plays soccer in the fall.

"So far we've kept it to just two…maintaining sanity," Henricks says of her dual-athlete. Max, who usually plays outfield, enjoys his time up at-bat, too, especially "When you hit a ball and you don't get out."

One of the coaches of gold team, a.k.a. the Tigers, is Craig Galvin, one of Dorchester's real estate agents. Multi-tasking seems to come naturally to him and the other coaches - pitching, cheering, showing a player how to swing, reminding those on the benches to pay attention to the game are all activities in the job description.

"Oh, I love it," he said, smiling and looking around at the chaos that was post-game cleanup. "Here we're trying to just get them a little more acclimated…foul balls are supposed to be foul, real hits are real hits, if you get out, you're out," he said of the league.

"What's great about Dorchester is everybody kind of just participates…everybody's kicking in," Galvin said. "I look behind me and there are twenty kids. If you can't make it, there are other coaches that kick in."

Galvin has been coaching Cedar Grove little league for about six years. His brother, Danny, also helps to coach the Tigers. They both have coached their own children on the team. Galvin appreciates that "young kids from Dorchester are getting what they need from the community."

Even before the gold and gray teams have shuffled out, maroon- and blue-shirted players show up to catch the end of the first game and prepare for their own. Al, a spectator along the wall of the park across from Cedar Grove Cemetery, comes to watch his seven-year-old daughter, Alex.

"She looks forward to playing," he said. "I enjoy it…[I get to] spend time with her, which is the most important thing to do."

Michael Lydon is in his first year of coaching tee-ball instructional and he and his team are having a ball, no pun intended. He and his fellow coaches are preparing the kids for the majors next year.

"These kids [by July 4] have learned what they're going to learn for the year and then hopefully people take some of this stuff and they work over the rest of the summer with them," he said.

Because of many local parishes scheduling First Holy Communion that day, there were fewer players on the field than usual. "We changed the rules a little bit…today we had a little bit of a mix-up," he said. "There weren't as many people so we kind of had to go back to ground zero as far as what they know and don't know." The coaches stress fundamentals at this stage in the game.

The season runs from April 29 to June 24, not exactly the MLB's equivalent time wise, but certainly its rival in terms of pride for the teams and fun for the players.

"It's fun," Galvin said. "That's what it's all about."