Cinco Ocho Rules!

The Bunt Across Generations

 

Hackley Review 2010 -- Early in the JV Baseball season this spring, the team was losing 2–1 in the bottom of the 6th, with one out and men on second and third, when Conor squeezed the tying run across the plate, using the bunt he learned from Tim MacDonald at Spring Training. The third baseman threw the ball away at first and two runs scored. Hackley won.

Hard to say who was more excited -- the batter, the team, the coaches, or Coach Tim, hearing about it the next day. For Tim, there was joy in seeing knowledge about the old-time sacrifice bunt technique transferred from one Hackley generation to another. That Conor is Bob Akin ’54’s grandson made this transfer between generations all the more poignant. “Anyone who knew Bob will be blown away by the cultural power of one simple bunt,” he wrote. “Hollywood couldn’t come up with a better ending.”

But for the team, the moment had a whole different meaning. At the bunt, their coach reported, “The entire bench started chanting Cinco Ocho, Cinco Ocho, Cinco Ocho!! We sure wish you could have been there. The kids made a direct connection with you teaching them how to bunt and such.” The bunt was Tim’s gift to them, and they call it -- and him -- CINCO OCHO in honor of Tim’s Hackley graduating year, ’58 (with an ironic nod to the football player known as “OCHOCINCO”).

Tim didn’t know who Ochocinco was, but promptly looked it up. And he didn’t know he’d earned the Cinco Ocho nickname himself. But he knew, as we all know, that when a group of boys gives you a nickname, it’s an honor. You rate. So, from the boys of the 2010 JV Baseball team -- Thanks, Coach Cinco Ocho!