Play ball! May 2018

T has been away since last Saturday and the whole week is centered on the technical aspects of parenting: making lunches, hurrying the kids out the door, doing the dishes, not really enjoying anything.

So on the list of things I actually want to do this week, C’s 6pm Thursday night baseball game at a faraway field affectionately called “The Dust Bowl,” comes in at dead last.

But he really wants to go. OK, fine.

We miss the warm up and we’re almost late to the game because Google maps sends us to the wrong part of the park, a long, skinny strip of greenery that straddles the center of Brooklyn’s Chinatown and is bisected by an expressway. Stuck in traffic after several wrong turns to get us on the right side of the expressway, I pause to consider the circumstances: we live in a city where it’s perfectly normal for available green space to adjoin a major expressway. Our society has advanced and this is what we have to show for it.

The league C plays in is about as non-competitive as they come at this age. Which is good; I am not cut out to attend cut-throat sporting events for children. And, let’s face it, neither is C. When your kid is not the kid slugging homers you spend a lot of time saying, it’s just about playing the game, it’s just about being part of a team, it’s just about getting out there; you say those things so many times, to yourself, to your kid, and to all the other parents on the team, who nod and say them back. And yet when your kid is up at bat you sometimes wish, that even though it’s just about getting out there, just about being a part of the team, sometimes, just every once in a while, it could also about getting a hit. Or standing still in the field and waiting for the ball to come.

C is playing 3rd base today (they don’t have set positions yet) and he is just killing it out there. He’s paying attention – a great start. He makes a good play, sending the ball to the second baseman for an out. And then, the other team starts stealing bases left and right. (Side note: I don’t think 9-year-olds in non-competitive baseball leagues should be stealing bases). The second baseman throws to C as a guy tries to steal the base, and the ball goes long and C scrambles to get it and then he TOTALLY RUNS AND TAGS THE KID OUT. Cheers! Victory! Wait. Hold on, everybody. The umpire comes over to say no, the kid stepped on the bag first. Which we just know isn’t true. We, the people of this hot sticky baseball game at the Dust Bowl, know that the kid for the light blue team is out. We know C tagged him out.

Sometimes C has a hard time controlling his anger; he can be the kind of kid who will fall apart on the field or even challenge the ump. In child development parlance he is “motivated by a deep sense of justice.” Also, he has a loud voice and he speaks as much like a lawyer as is humanly possible for a 9-year-old child. Seriously. There is an empty chair on a debate team waiting for him. But today C keeps his cool on the field and I’m so proud of him. When the inning is over he comes over to me and breaks into tears. I know how you feel, I tell him. Baseball is a series of unfair calls, I say.

C recovers and the game goes apace. He doesn’t get any hits but he has some nice swings and he gets walked, and it’s fine. It’s the final inning; our team is down by 4 runs; we’re not going to come back; no one seems to care that much. But the other team’s pitcher is throwing a lot of balls. Next thing you know, practically every kid on our team has been walked, and we’re creeping up on the other team. Then we’re down by 1 run. The pitcher, a meaty, athletic-looking kid, starts to wipe his eyes. Not sweat. Tears. He throws another walk, another kid from our team passes home plate, and the game is tied. Another guy walks, and we’re winning. The pitcher flails himself down on the mound. He starts weeping, moaning. Our team, at first jubilant, watches the pitcher prostrate on the ground, hitting the dirt in rage, and freezes.

On the way home C says he feels really bad for the other team. The ump made some bad calls, he says. They deserved to win, really, he says.

A lot about baseball is just sort of unfair, I say, but it’s still just fun to play the game, to get out there, and be a part of a team.

UPDATE: AFTER I WROTE THIS BLOG POST AND PROCRASTINATED POSTING IT, C PLAYED ANOTHER GAME AND GOT A REALLY EXCELLENT HIT!! IT’S ALL ABOUT GETTING OUT THERE!