One word explains the success of Little Mountain Little League and it’s one the team’s head coach believes should have a greater reach among competitors.

“Fun,” said Frank Soper. “We have fun.”

With a baker’s dozen of boys from 11 to 13 years old, Soper is at the Canadian Little League Championships in Ontario this weekend to defend B.C.’s winning streak of five consecutive titles.

Last year another Vancouver team—Hastings Little League—made national headlines when it moved from the provincial and national tournaments to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Little Mountain aspires after the same.

But Soper tells the Mountaineers, as the rep baseball team is known, not to take for granted that they’re at the ballpark to enjoy themselves. Plenty of competitive parents and coaches could stand to take note since attitudes in the dugout and bleachers can easily overheat.

“At this level, I’ve seen coaches and managers screaming at kids, launching into them,” Soper said Thursday afternoon at the team’s home diamond at Hillcrest Community Centre. “We’re trying to make these kids grow up way too fast and we’re putting too much pressure on them.”

Pressure is not something Little League is without, but telling adolescent boys who otherwise need minimal prompting to relax and have fun is a task Soper doesn’t take lightly or in jest.

B.C. has reigned at the Canadian nationals for half a decade and has sent a team 20 times in 54 years to the Little League World Series to dress in red and white to represent Canada. Little Mountain, which became the country’s first chartered Little League team in 1951, has returned to Williamsport five times. Only one other team, Whalley Little League, matches that feat and further testifies to B.C.’s pedigree.

To win the provincial pennant July 31 in New Westminster, Little Mountain shut out the defending Canadian champions 8–0 and went undefeated in round-robin play.

Outfielder Lachlan Hunter, 12, pointed to one of his coach’s winning ways: a stinky sock.

“If you don’t smile, you get the sock in your face. It smells like a fart but 10 times worse and you can smell it one hour later,” he said.

Soper credits a previous coach who invested time in developing the young athletes. Mike Smythe now coaches an older age category, but Soper applauded his patience and dedication to Little Mountain Little League.

Soper maintained the high level of training—he’s coached since his own son started playing T-ball at age four—and injected more than a little irreverence.

At the provincial tournament last weekend in New Westminster, an umpire called Soper on his pants. The coach’s colourful, expressive and deliberately distracting pants were one of the main talking points of the tournament. He packed nine pairs for nationals, including a white, floral, bellbottom set for the opening and closing games.

According to Soper, the ump suggested he was taking the game away from the kids.

To which the coach replied: “Look at these kids—I’m not looking like an idiot for myself. It’s not about me but these kids. They’re having fun.”

He started wearing the garish garb—and espousing a balance of play and budding professionalism—three years ago when a loss deflated the junior team and the intensity became too serious and the young athletes too nervous. “It wasn’t what baseball is about,” he said.

Soper senses his Little League charges will play better if they’re relaxed on the mound, around the diamond and at bat. So far, he’s right.

mstewart@vancourier.com