Not that they don’t remind you themselves from time to time. Halfway back from Machias after the first trip, the rainout, J. J. Fiddler begins to wriggle around uneasily in the back seat of the car he is riding in. ‘I gotta go,’ he says. He clutches at himself and adds ominously, ‘Man, I gotta go bad. I mean big time.’
‘J.J.’s gonna do it!’ Joe Wilcox cries gleefully. ‘Watch this! J.J.’s gonna flood the car!’
‘Shut up, Joey,’ J.J. says, and then begins to wriggle around again. He has waited until the worst possible moment to make his announcement. The eighty-four-mile trip between Machias and Bangor is, for the most part, an exercise in emptiness. There isn’t even a decent stand of trees into which J.J. can disappear for a few moments along this stretch of road – only mile after mile of open hayfields, with Route 1A cutting a winding course through them.
Just as JJ.’s bladder is going to DEFCON-1, a providential gas station appears. The assistant coach swings in and tops up his tank while J.J. splits for the men’s room. ‘Boy!’ he says, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he jogs back to the car. ‘ That was close!’ ‘Got some on your pants, J.J.,’ Joe Wilcox says casually, and everyone goes into spasms of wild laughter as J.J. checks.
On the trip back to Machias the next day, Matt Kinney reveals one of the chief attractions People magazine holds for boys of Little League age.