Something about the slow pace of baseball makes everybody feel as if they know everything there is to know about the sport. Yet, the reality that baseball games are like fingerprints in that no two are alike ought to make everybody realize that the game that is so difficult to master is full of nuances and therefore only those who have played it well and for a long time can teach it.

By the time Captain Pat Karlin of the Lawrence Fire Department began coaching youth baseball to 8-year-old boys, he had completed a successful career playing for Kansas University and had been an assistant coach for four years at Free State High.

The credibility that comes with that made for nice fodder in staving off interference from dads.

Karlin, one of Lawrence’s many dedicated, talented youth baseball coaches, has the humility not to boast about his baseball background, but also is smart enough to bring it up if he thinks it will make for a better learning environment for his players.

“I think early on it gives the parents confidence in you,” Karlin said. “It’s easier for them to buy in. I would let them know about it and emphasize it when I thought I needed to because parents sometimes have a tendency to coach from the stands: ‘Keep your elbow up!’ We had a parent-player agreement that said you have confidence in me and when you drop them off at the park, they are my responsibility. No coaching from the stands.”

Free State players: Front row, from left to right, Cooper Karlin, Joel Spain, Marcileno Cortez. Back row: Jon Saathoff (far left) and Casey Hearnen (far right). Lawrence High players: Front row, Nolan Prochaska (far right); Back row, Michael Sinks (fourth from left). Coach Pat Karlin is pictured third row, far left. After winning the 2008 USSSA state championship, the entire team went to the Downtown Barber Shop for buzz cuts.

Karlin held up his end of the bargain by developing players and remaining objective.

It worked.

Five of the players — son Cooper Karlin, Marcelino Cortez, Casey Hearnen, Jon Saathoff and Joel Spain — from the 2008 USSSA state championship team that Karlin coached will play for 18-4 Free State High next week in the 6A state tournament. Two more, Michael Sinks and Nolan Prochaska, will try to join Free State at the 6A tournament by winning twice today for Lawrence High at Hummer Park in Topeka. (Free State’s Tripp Wright didn’t play for that team but also has played multiple seasons for Karlin.)

Karlin remembers that team winning three games in one day by scores of 4-3, 6-5 and 2-1.

“We weren’t overly talented and we weren’t very big,” Karlin said. “We did not scare anybody getting off the bus by any means. … We didn’t out-athlete anybody. We did it with hard work and knowing the game and playing it the right way. We weren’t blessed with a ton of speed, but we had good baserunners. They didn’t run like deer. They knew how to take the extra base, how to come hard out of the box. Fundamentally, we were really pretty darn sound.

“Our goal from the get-go was to prepare them to be successful at the high school level.”

Karlin knew what that was going to take because he had worked for Mike Hill and with LHS coach Brad Stoll on the first Firebirds staff. All three baseball coaches use the same terminology and teach “bunt coverages, relays, things like that,” the same way as Hill and Stoll.

When Karlin reflected on the youth teams he coached, he just as easily could have been describing this season’s Firebirds. They are better at playing good baseball than at looking like baseball stars walking off the bus.

Oh well, knowing the game and knowing each other’s games so well from years as teammates goes farther toward playing winning baseball than bulging biceps any day.