After a Near-Tragedy, the Tahoe Titans Get Ready to Take the Field
By DEBRA MOFFITT
ONEONTA
When the Tahoe Titans arrive here to play ball next week, they will have traveled farther than any other team. It’s not just the 2,700 miles. The 12 kids from Truckee, a small mountain town in California, journeyed through a near-tragedy to get to Otsego County.
On February 7, a man rammed his truck into a group of boys and parents as they stood at a folding table outside a Safeway where they were raising funds for their summer trip to Cooperstown All Star Village.
Asking for community donations outside a grocery store on a Saturday was a way to give the kids some ownership in an expensive trip across the country, said Bree Waters, the team’s manager and mom of an 11-year-old player. For a donation, the boys offered bags of beef jerky and raised more than $2,000.00 in a few hours.
Prior to the crash, the driver of the truck approached the table, grumbled something and put out a cigarette on one of the team’s posters, witnesses said. Later, his white truck hit them from behind and pushed players and their parents through a grocery store wall, injuring some and traumatizing all.
One player’s younger brother suffered a broken arm, while several others sustained injuries in the crash. Among them was a mother who suffered head, neck and back injuries. But the injured were able to leave the hospital that night, Waters said.
“It was just like a miracle,” she said.
One of the player’s mothers was on crutches when she attended a court hearing for the driver, who has since been charged in Nevada County with eight counts of attempted murder. The kids recounted the vehicle attack in local news interviews, describing the sound of the crash and saying they felt like brothers. They stretched for words like “resilience” much sooner than a Little Leaguer should have to.
Their emotional recovery has taken time. Parents struggled to explain to their sons why terrible things happen.
“The kids are getting through it. You can’t explain it,” Waters said. “The whole town came out to support us. It was amazing.”
Feeling that boost from the community, the parents decided they would respond with strength and not let a senseless act define their team, she said. The players had, after all, been training all winter though they play other sports and ski.
The trip was in the planning stages for a year. Waters remembers Coach Marshall Grant telling her, “I have this dream of taking our boys to Cooperstown.”
Their local Little League draws from a small pool of kids and has been often outmatched during their annual trip to Reno for All-Stars, Waters said.
To have a team that could compete better, they set and kept a commitment to train regularly. They put together a team made of kids who love baseball and of parents who get along—families you’d be willing to travel cross-country with, Waters said.
After the attack on February 7, the team rallied around the idea that you can choose how to respond after something terrible happens.
“We have to get back up and keep moving forward. Otherwise, they win,” Waters said. “So we kept showing up and we kept playing…and now we’re going to Cooperstown.”
A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $90,000.00.
“We wanted to tell this town we heard them loud and clear,” she said.
The full team of 12 players and their parents are coming to All Star Village for Week 10, which kicks off Thursday, July 23. Before leaving for New York State, the anticipation was building for the Titans.
“We’re pretty excited,” Waters said. “It’s starting to set in for all of us. It’s like, oh my gosh, it’s happening.”
