The Naturals
I was playing little league baseball when I was eight. I stood out in left field with the Pennsylvania humidity and the Wilson mitt my dad bought me from Sears.
Lester pitched one to this heavy kid and he hit it high and hard in my direction. I took a couple of steps to where I thought in was headed, which was pretty close to where I was. I thought that was kind of a shame because I liked doing those running catches which a dive or a hop and then throwing the ball fast and low to second or third and try and make the double play. The dads and mums in the stands always went crazy and your team mates fell silent. I can’t decide which sounded sweeter.
The ball headed earthward toward me and knocked my cap off back over my head with a quick knock to the bill. That was my thing. I’d seen catchers so it on TV, but they were doing it because you can’t see up high in a facemask. I had not reason to do it, but I thought it looked impressive so I did it anyway.
With the ball heading towards me I focused on nothing else. “Read the writing,” my dad used to say to get me to really concentrate on the target. I was consumed with the idea of the catch. There was nothing but me and a ball made of cork, twine, rubber, wrapped up in leather and surrounded by sky.
Clack.
The catch.
I didn’t even throw it back straight away - I just tightened my hand in the mitt around the ball and waited for the cheer.
And there it was. The crowd went silly and I threw the ball back so hard to no one in particular that it hit the batting cage. I took a couple of steps back, picked up my hat and put it back on and punched my glove and couple of times.
I looked for my dad in the stand and didn’t see him. I couldn’t hear him. You know how kids know their parents voices in a sea of noise? Nothing. Normally the dads led the cheers. Some even got into arguments with other dads, but never mine.
The inning went on with no sign of my dad. A couple of plays went on, a few base hits but nothing for me in the outfield and still no dad. My bask turned into a stew.
Then out of the corner of my eye, there he was, standing about 15 feet from me on the other side of the wire outfield fence, just him far away from the parents cheering in the stands.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered, keeping one eye on the game.
“How you doing?”
“Um. Good. Where have you been?”
“I took a walk,” he said.
He had a soda in his hand. Crud. My big moment and he wasn’t there to cheer on my glory.
“You see the catch?” I said.
He nodded and smiled and managed to say “Nice catch” over the lump in his throat. There’s your glory.
I realised then how that moment summed us up. Neither of us needed to go in for all that cheering stuff. There was enough pride and quiet admiration to fill Yankee Stadium, right there on either side of the fence in left field.