The Mighty Midget 1950

"Hey, hero, you trying out for football?" Frank's father, Joe Merino, calls out from the TV room. 

Joe must be kidding. Frank is only 12. He's also heavy, fat, what adults call a Husky. Mighty big. No wonder. Cooking's his favorite hobby. In fact, he's now busy frying burgers, as he usually does when Mom and Dad come back from weekly shopping at the A & P.

"Burn one for Dad," Mom, Josephine, says. She's emptying the shopping bags.

"With double cheese," Dad says, striding into the kitchen. Frank looks up to see that he's carrying his newspaper, the Jackson Citizen Patriot. Dad takes a long hard look at Frank and says, "How many for you?" 

"Six, at least," Frank answers. 

Unamused, Joe sits down at the kitchen table, smoothing his thin moustache with a finger, and reads from an article on the sports page: "Beginning in August, the Jackson Booster Club will sponsor a football league for eleven- and twelve-year-old boys and will be coached by Fortune Sullo," he reads, then folds his paper. "He's Italian, you know, like us. The tryouts are at Loomis Park, a short easy walk across the street from our house." He stops, stares steadily at Frank. “Paper says the teams are called The Mighty Midgets.” 

Rosy shrieks, “Midgets!” Frank's little sister giggles, stares at him wide-eyed, whips her tiny head from side to side. “Midgets?" What more can he expect from a skinny seven-year-old? Mom sort of smiles, her eyes worried.

"Coach Sullo has plans for the teams to play at some halftimes of Jackson High home games," Joe says. "And he wants to schedule a halftime at some college." Sweating, Frank lugs a plate of burgers and buns to the table. "Coach Sullo actually invented this idea," Joe says. "There aren't any other kids that age playing football in Michigan with real uniforms and all."  

Frank takes two burgers, piles on extra cheese, mustard, pickles, relish, onions, lettuce, and sliced tomatoes. "Any chili?" he asks.

"Are those Mighty Midget burgers?" Rosy wonders out loud. 

"Well, you trying out for the Midgets?" Joe wonders, all too loud.

"Darn, have to practice clarinet," Frank says, a strand of raw onion trying to escape his mouth.

"Is it rough football?" Mom asks.  

"They play just like the high school teams, only they're smaller. Midgets," Joe says.  

“Midgets!" Rosy echoes, and giggles. “Monster Midgets?" 

"Pass the burgers," Mom says, winking at Frank. What a relief when she says, "That's too rough for my little Franky."   

"It's a heck of a lot rougher than hanging around the kitchen cooking and eating all the time," Joe says. He now talks in Italian, so Rosy and Frank won't understand, but Frank knows exactly what he's saying and is alert. "He just thinks about those King Arthur knights and war heroes instead of going out to play. The heaviest thing he lifts is a burger. He even makes popcorn and fudge. That's girls' stuff."

"He's good at it," Mom says. She smiles sweetly at Frank.

Back to plain English, his father tells them about how he never got to play sports because his family came over from the old country, Sicily, and he had to work for a living in the Colorado coal mines near Aguilar, never had enough to eat, and so on. Of course, Frank's heard this before, so he keeps eating, now on his second pair of burgers. 

"Football would be good for him," Joe says. Meaning Frank, mind you, big bulging Frank, but not there for the sake of this conversation. “It wouldn't hurt him to get some real exercise. Besides chewing," Dad concludes, again staring intently at Frank.  

Back up in his room, ear to the cold-air register, Frank can hear his parents talking Italian in the kitchen. He plays around with "Lady of Spain" on the clarinet, really tortures that hag, but also keeps an ear to the register. He hears Joe, who likes big dogs, complain about Frank's pets again, wondering why "the boy has to go for such things, like baby chicks, hamsters, fish, turtles, even bugs. It isn't manly," he says.   

"He's protective," Mom replies. "Don't you see how he takes care of Rosy?" Mom tells him that the nuns teach Frank not to be violent or show anger. 

Dad counters, "That's why we've got organized sports. Like football, with protective pads and all those rules."

“I still worry about the physical dangers,” she says, but she can see his point that it might be good for Frank to stop being such a Lone Ranger (incidentally, his favorite radio program).

Dad adds, "The boy’ll get interested in girls and he'll be ashamed of his weight."  

Of course, in his dad’s day they were so poor and worked so hard they never got overweight.  

"Eat your cannoli," his mom says, "Franky made it."  

As his mother climbs the stairs to his room, Frank continues squawking out "Lady of Spain." He really hates the clarinet and especially that song, but he's stuck with both… unless! Unless he tries out for the football team and makes it. Mainly, though, he wants to get his dad off his back about being a sissy. 

Mom pops her head into Frank’s room and frowns at his souped up "Lady of Spain." She puts her arm around his shoulders and encourages him to try out for the Midgets. "And girls like athletic boys," she concludes. 

Girls have started to get interesting, especially a little blonde that sits in front of Frank at school, so he promises to try out for football, if that's what they want. 

At the Midgets tryouts, clumsy eleven- and twelve-year-old boys clot the field. Fathers shout encouragement as their sons weigh in. Frank sucks in his stomach and steps on the scale, earning a low, sarcastic whistle from the assistant coach who records his weight. Coaches direct everyone to run until they drop; then sprint ten yards, squat in three-point stances and run out for passes thrown by Coach Sullo and hopeful quarterbacks. And, one by one, boys leave the field because they didn't make the cut.

Needless to say, Frank's the biggest kid on the field. Coach Sullo finally calls him over. Coach Sullo's mustache is like Joe's, but he's shorter, stockier, and more aggressive. Also, like Joe, he talks to his assistant coaches as if Frank's not here: "Possibly a tackle, the kid has SIZE! and look at his HANDS, BIG, great for a T-formation CENTER," Coach bellows.

Frank winces, noticing that Coach Sullo likes to speak in CAPITAL LETTERS. Coach orders Frank to squat over the ball and grab it with his RIGHT HAND. 

"Okay, now just lift it to my hands," Coach Sullo says. Frank does it a few times, straining over his belly to see between his chunky legs, but Coach Sullo abruptly snaps Frank’s head back so he's looking straight ahead.

"Good, good, now HIKE IT." 

"Huh?"

"Hike the ball, SNAP IT! Into my hands." 

Frank finally does it right. Coach orders him to snap the ball to tiny John Crandell, who drops back and tosses a beauty, a tight spiral all the way. Though Crandell is small, half Frank's size, he has hands as big as Frank's head and can pass about a mile and a half. 

Red "Brick" Fleming, sportswriter for the Jackson Citizen Patriot, takes notes, saying aloud, "Crandell's got good hands, and Frank Merino's a natural split-T center."

"Yeah, has good SIZE," Coach adds.  

Frank rolls his eyes in dismay at this reference to his size. Coach Sullo guarantees Frank a spot on the Red team and names Crandell the Red's quarterback. They will start practice here at Loomis Park next Saturday. Dad snaps a picture of Frank standing with Coach. Dad is also proud that Frank was the only Italian picked for either team. He's sure his boy will be a credit to Our People. 

Dad smiles—unusual for him, and says, "Bet you can't wait for practice to start." 

Frank's wince says that he can wait.

At the practice field, Sullo works with both the Red and the Blue teams. Because of his tight schedule, also teaching history and coaching over at Jackson High, he often wears dark blue business suits to practices. Coach makes them run and run and run around the field. Frank sweats and sweats and sweats. They run ten-yard wind sprints. And Frank wheezes and wheezes and wheezes. And throws up.  

"RUN IN PLACE!" booms Coach, his huge capital letters cutting into Frank's aching head like shrapnel, whatever that is. They then run and run and run in place, a relief to Frank. Until coach yells, "HIT IT!" and demonstrates by throwing his business-suited body to the ground so you can HEAR the impact. He springs back to his feet, legs pumping in place: "HIT IT!" And Oooomph! Frank's big belly hits IT hard. 

"I'LL MAKE FOOTBALL PLAYERS OUTTA YOU GIRLS YET!"

"Football?" Frank gasps to Crandell. "Haven't seen a FOOTBALL since we started." 

"SHUT UP, Merino, AND STAY DOWN!" Frank stays down, teeter-totters on a fold of gut fat, thanks God for staying down. "PushUPS! UpdownUpdownUpdownUpdown. UP! Down UP! Ten MORE LAPS!"

Then Coach orders blocking practice on the dummy sled, right shoulder and left shoulder. When Frank hits it, three of the heavier players ride the sled to hold it down.

Coach Sullo commands the squads to get ready for cross-body blocking. Shoulder blocks are for protecting the line, cross-body blocks for the open field. He calls for volunteers: 

"You, Merino!" 

Frank steps forward. 

"You, O'DOWD!" 

O'Dowd trots over from the Blues' practice group. He's thin, athletic, and pug-nosed, a redhead with a perfect flattop haircut. 

"Listen! Aim for the CHEST," Coach booms.  

"Huh? What? How?" 

"How? What? Huh?"

"With your entire body, O’Dowd. Launch yourself sideways to strike them in the chest. Here, Merino, stand with your arms straight out like a cradle. NO, NO, elbows to your sides, palms UP, that's it, now curl your wrists and palms toward you so you CAN CATCH O'Dowd when he throws a cross-body at you. READY?"  

Frank's ready, and so is O'Dowd, who launches himself like a catapult, hammers into Frank’s soft chest and flabby chin, his arms the perfect cradle, and tumbles Frank viciously to the ground. O'Dowd bounces to his feet. Frank doesn't bounce. He jiggles. Head spinning, Frank climbs to his feet, salty blood on his lips tasting terrible as he spits it out. Tears burn his eyes.

“Hey, BAMBINO, you're not CRYING, are you?" Coach sneers.  

"Nocoash, jussweating," Frank gurgles. He wonders why Coach HAS to be Italian.

"You hurt, Burger Butt?" O'Dowd says, and trots away laughing like a maniacal Woody Woodpecker. But Frank survives two weeks of scrimmages. 

A knot in his gut pulls tighter and tighter just before their first halftime game at Worthington Stadium. Jackson High home games, always on Friday nights, are a very, very big deal. Bright lights, noisy bands, opposing crowds screaming, cheerleaders jumping all over the place.

As the center, Frank will carry the game ball and lead both teams onto the field. But he kind of freezes at the gate, feels sweat sloshing around between his hand and the football. 

Behind him, little Crandell peeps, "Move it or lose it!" 

Frank moves it. And steps off a cliff. The knot in his stomach shoots up and slams into his brain. But in a split second his feet hit ground and he stumbles down the sideline. Hey! Dad's standing behind the fence, and Mom, too! They wave at Frank. 

Rosy pulls her skinny body up to the top of the fence and shouts, "Go get 'em, Monster Midge!"

Frank's foot goes off the cliff again. He stumbles. Falls flat on his face in the grass. Right in front of the high school cheerleaders. One of them's the sister of that blonde he likes. Crandell leaps over Frank, circles the jumping pompon girls, and races back to help him up. Heat and mugginess burn Frank's eyes, and maybe a tear or two help. A camera flashes. "No pictures!" Frank moans, ducking his head. 

Dad just shakes his head slowly, pops the flashbulb from his camera. Mom hides behind her program. Standing on the bleachers, hands on hips, Rosy mugs a comic face and mouths, "Midge!"  

Pacing in front of the player's bench, Coach Sullo stares down into the crown of his gray fedora as if looking for the answer to why he's being so humiliated. Humiliated? Frank, for the first time ever, feels only about two inches tall. He plods on down to the fifty-yard line, cuts right and runs to midfield, where he hulks over the ball to start the Red's series of warmup plays. Winning the coin toss, the Blues elect to receive. On the first play from scrimmage, O'Dowd, their offensive left half, runs through the line and straight at Frank. He plays safety man on defense, the last man between an opponent’s runner and the goal. 

O’Dowd yells, "Look out, Burger Butt!" and screeches his Woody Woodpecker laugh all the way to the end zone, leaving Frank on his back. 

Frank has O'Dowd's footprint on the front of his jersey. O'Dowd's ragging on Frank for clumsiness, size, missed tackles, and bad blocks wears him down almost as much as the physical game. Fortunately, the Reds score on a thirty-yard pass from Crandell to Dicky Barnard. But the Blues win 7 to 6.

Dad's photo of Frank leaving the field shows his left eye black and blue, face scratched, large nose swollen, black hair too curly, and belly bulging from too many burgers, but it doesn't show his brutally injured pride. 

Frank’s thinking about resigning from the Midgets and in the locker room tells Crandell, "There must be easier ways to impress my dad." 

"SHUT UP, Merino, and LISTEN UP," Coach Sullo says, shutting down the locker room chatter. "In three weeks, get it, THREE WEEKS, you girls'll be playing at the half of a Michigan game in ANN ARBOR."    

On a sunny Saturday, the Midgets pack into a fat yellow school bus for the ride to Ann Arbor.  They are thrilled to ride the thirty-three miles to that lovely college town. When they jump off the bus at Michigan Stadium, the air smells sweet with burning leaves, hot coffee, and roasting hot dogs as the Michigan band plays "Hail to the Victors." College students wear knitted blue and maize M-sweaters and carry M-pennants. "Go Blue!" echoes from the stadium. 

"Yeah, us Blues'll be GO-ING all over the Reds! Especially on their center," O'Dowd says and laughs like Woody Woodpecker.

Frank ignores him. Already in uniform, both teams march directly from the bus to the stadium at halftime. Coach Sullo leads them to the entry arch at the Michigan end and waves them onto the field, shouting, "Show some GUTS! Give 'em a good SHOW!"  

What a show it is. Crandell is weak from a flu, so he doesn't move as fast as usual. On the first play, O'Dowd jumps over Frank and tackles tiny Crandell so hard he can't get up. When Frank reaches down to give Crandell a hand, O'Dowd says, "Hey, our burger bulging hero's saving that little pipsqueak!" 

Frank plows into him, shouting, "And you're a redheaded peckerwood! With a stupid little nose and crooked flattop!" And then takes O’Dowd down with his full weight. Others try to pull Frank off, and he blurts out some awful things, even to his Reds. 

Angry, Coach Sullo replaces Frank PERMANENTLY! with Deke Kelly, the second-string center. The Reds win, 7-3. Fortunately, Frank's dad is visiting his father in Chicago, so he

doesn't see any of this. On the bus ride back to Jackson, Coach Sullo announces that the final game will be for the championship between the Reds and Blues, now tied at 3 to 3.  

"GIRLS, listen up, and listen good. Everything goes right, you're playing at the half of the Lions-Bears game, Thanksgiving Day. Get it? Pro teams. Longer halftime shows. And it's on national television. NEXT WEEK. At Tiger Stadium. That okay with you GIRLS?" Everyone gasps, then cheers. Everyone but Frank.

"All you have to do is apologize," Crandell says.

"Apologize? Never." Frank's been playing his best, so what does everyone want from him?   

In Detroit, the locker room is dark, like a cave, cold and quiet—until Deke Kelly throws up from nervousness, briefly setting off a general purge. Trying to control their fear, the players call out as many descriptions of the gagging as they can: "Upchucking by a lineman!" "Barf city!" "Exhaling OJ!" "Retch O Rama!" "Cookie tossing by the backfield!" 

"EVERYBODY losing their lunch?" yells Coach Sullo.

Even Frank's caught up in it, though not likely to play, his skin cold and damp, stomach burning from the four burgers he scarfed for lunch. Silence finally returns, silence as dull as in an empty church. It's so quiet you can hear the guy next to you sweat. Frank's body is icy, mind empty.  

Coach Sullo breaks the silence by introducing some Lions players and coaches. They tell the players what a great opportunity the Midgets organization is for them, how great football is, how great it is to learn teamwork. How great to be on television! 

Leaving the tunnel, the Lions’ coach notices Frank standing with a ball and says to Coach Sullo, "The kid has good size." He winks at Frank and adds, "Look us up when you finish school."

Frank beams with pride. And then looks humble. He has SIZE. And a BIG mouth. What can he say? Suddenly, he knows. Crandell's right. Clenching his hands, grinding his teeth, Frank takes a deep breath, stutters and stammers an apology to Coach and the team for being such a troublemaker and smartmouth. 

"No kidding, I mean it." 

"That's ENOUGH, Merino," Coach says.

To Crandell, Frank whispers, "Dad doesn't know I've been demoted. What'll I tell him?"

"ZIP IT, Merino. All right, GIRLS, it's time!" Coach says.

The Red and Blue teams line up to go out. "Deke, good luck," Frank says and tosses the game football to him, standing at the tunnel’s exit to the field. Deke catches the ball, tucks it under his arm, and breaks into a smile, a terrible smile as his mouth opens wide and he spits out more of his lunch. Gagging and choking, he can't seem to stop as he sinks to his knees. Frank grabs a towel, runs over to help.

"GET AWAY, Merino!" Coach yells. He kneels beside Deke, "You OKAY?"

"You can do it, Deke," Frank says over Coach's shoulder. Deke wipes his mouth and nods, stands up and says, "Let's go!" And he lets go of everything left in him. 

"CATCH!" Coach Sullo says, frowning and tossing Frank the game ball. Hard. "And don't say ONE word out there!"

"Oh, goody, our hero's gonna play," O'Dowd says in a loud whisper.

"You're right," Frank snaps. 

What a thrill for Frank to lead them out of that tunnel! The air is freezing and light snow has powdered the field sugary white. Where's Dad? Frank wonders, since he's always on hand to shoot a picture of his game entrance. But Frank doesn't see him anywhere. Nuts— his biggest moment and Dad's missing it. The Blues receive the kick off and O'Dowd, untouched, runs the ball for a touchdown, laughing like a maniac all the way. Crandell gets hot and teams up with Dicky to score in the Red's first three plays, tying the game, 7 to 7.

Snow falls harder and thicker. The stadium lights flare on. Time remains for only one more series of plays. When the Reds kickoff, the ball flies high, disappears in the snow for a moment, then sails like a huge white planet over the Blues, falls slowly, slowly, slowly, until it slaps into O'Dowd's hands. All of the Reds charge down field, leaving Frank as the last man on defense. O'Dowd dodges everyone and thunders straight for Frank, looking larger and larger, HUGE, a challenging giant, a TITAN laughing his maniacal laugh. They collide head on, and it's like they've stopped cold, hanging in midair for a long time before crashing to the ground. Their impact drives the ball into O'Dowd's gut, knocking the wind out of him, and the ball flies free. It bounces crazily through the snow until Frank scrambles to recover it.

The Reds set up. Crandell barks out the count. He taps Frank's butt, signaling a quarterback sneak, and runs right up the middle to the two yard line before being crunched by O'Dowd. Getting up, O'Dowd pushes off Crandell, making him fall back to the ground. Dicky has ahold of Frank's arm before he can attack O'Dowd. According to the clock, there is one last chance for the Reds to score and win. 

O'Dowd trash talks Frank from across the line, "C'mon, hero, I'm waiting!"

Crandell signals another sneak. Frank snaps the ball, blocks O'Dowd with all his fury, opens a tiny hole. As O'Dowd's knee crashes into Frank's head, O'Dowd shouts, "Nice block!" He also pulls down Crandell an inch from the goal line. No score. We lost. Yeah, really nice block, Frank's expression reveals.  

Riding back home on the bus, O'Dowd's actually friendly and says he looks forward to playing with Frank again. 

Coach laughs. "I TOLD him to RIDE you Merino, so you'd get off your CAN."  

"And eat less," O'Dowd says.

Coach says quietly, "Your father, he must be proud of you."

"He wasn't even at the game."

“Probably the weather,” Coach murmurs. 

Back home on Edgewood Street, Frank tries to sneak in the back door, but Mom's there in the kitchen taking a turkey from the oven. She tells Frank that Joe couldn't drive to Detroit because of the snow, but he'd knelt patiently, reverently, before the 12-inch Admiral television screen with his 35 mm camera to snap a shot of Frank leading the teams onto the field. When Frank walks into the TV room, Dad's tinkering with his camera. Rosy sits beside him.

"Way to go, Frank," she says. "Wow, you look thinner."

Mom calls out, “Dinner’s ready!” and Frank bolts for the kitchen.

Dad asks pointlessly, "Hey, hero, you trying out for football next year?"

Ralph La Rosa has published prose on major American writers, including Emerson and Thoreau, and has placed short fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film scripts. These days, he mostly writes poetry, appearing on the Internet, in print journals and anthologies. His books include the chapbook Sonnet Stanzas and full-length Ghost Trees and My Miscellaneous Muse.