Little League Can Mean Big Pressure for Players : Baseball: Fear of failure often becomes a dominant emotion for youngsters who are counted upon to succeed.

HARWOOD HEIGHTS, Ill. —  When the Little League Dodgers took the field against the White Sox one recent Saturday, they figured there was no way they could lose.

On the mound for the Dodgers was 11-year-old Paul Santucci, the Nolan Ryan of the league. In his previous outing, a fairly typical performance, he had struck out the last six and won the game with a three-run homer.

His teammates were almost in awe of Santucci. Tall and good-looking, he batted cleanup and wore Ryne Sandberg’s number, 23.

“He’s perfect, I think,” said left fielder John Mahon, 11. “He has every good quality you need to play baseball. When the game’s on the line, we say, ‘Come on, Paul, you can do it!’ and he usually does.”

Added center fielder Graham Brennan, 12: “Without Paul, we couldn’t beat the White Sox.”

So the Dodgers were dumbstruck when Santucci gave up three runs in the first inning on two triples, a fielder’s choice and four consecutive walks. When the score reached 7-0 in the fourth, the coach reluctantly moved him to the outfield, putting in another pitcher.

The players fell absolutely silent when Santucci returned to the bench.

The day before, he sat in the bleachers behind the dugout and described his feelings about failure.

“Most of the other guys don’t look at the game like I do,” Santucci said. “They don’t worry that if they don’t come through, the team will lose. But I do.”

Many youth sports teams have one superior player, one athlete such as Santucci who stands out. Most learn quickly that they pay a steep price for being the best.

“When the game’s on the line and I come through, I feel relief as much as happiness,” Santucci said. “I feel relief (that) I didn’t let my teammates down. It takes a little bit of the enjoyment away.

“Some of my friends and I who are good ballplayers, we talk about it. There are only three or four of us in the league who play with that kind of pressure, and we all just live with it. I feel like we’re connected. We know things the other kids don’t know about.”

For the most part, their parents don’t know about them, either.

“I don’t think my parents have any idea that I sometimes get scared,” said 11-year-old David Henrichsen, the Paul Santucci of the White Sox. “They don’t know that I spend more time worrying that I’m going to fail than I do about winning the game.

“I worry when I’m on the field, and before, at school and at home. When we score a couple of runs with two out, I worry about making the last out. When I pitch, I worry that I’ll walk a lot of people or give up a bunch of hits.

“I think about it all, and it gives me the butterflies. I don’t like that feeling. It was almost better last year, when I wasn’t the best on the team and no one depended on me.”

Henrichsen was able to breathe easy the day of the Dodger-White Sox game. He skipped it to go on a Boy Scout camping trip.

For Santucci, the game seemed never-ending. He came to bat with the bases loaded in the fifth inning and his teammates cheering for a home run, but struck out.

On the bench, Mahon quietly shook his head.

“Sometimes we put too much pressure on him,” he said. “We say, ‘Come on, Paul, you can do better than that,’ after he makes an out or walks a guy. I know I’d be a nervous wreck if everyone depended on me to win every game.”

The Dodgers ultimately lost, 10-9.

“I wish I could take a magic wand and make all the pressure go away,” Santucci had said, sitting in the bleachers the day before. “A lot of times I wish I was just average. If I was an average player and made a mistake, nobody would notice. They’d almost expect it.

“But I don’t have a magic wand.”