a summer story

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there's this story my mother loves to tell about the summer i played little-league, and she tells it well--great wind-up, pitch-perfect delivery, dramatic pauses in all the right places--and by the time she's done, she always has her audience in stitches.


i always go along with it, smiling good-naturedly and making self-deprecating noises--but the truth is, she might as well be talking about somebody else, because i have no more recollection of the incident that is the subject of this post than of the day i was born.


how, you ask, could i have so thoroughly excised from my consciousness a memory which will apparently live on in my mother's steel-trap mind unto the end of time?


oh, i dunno--you tell me.

*     *     *     *     *

our team was called the stars, and it was but one of many in a neighborhood full of sons and fathers [and don't even get me started on the mothers] who were batshit-crazy about baseball.

and every kid on birdwood road--all my friends--signed up for the team, so what the fuck was i supposed to do?  and besides, mr. harberger next door and mr. ramsey across the street were gonna coach us, and the uniforms were cool--and what the hell, it'd make my dad proud.

i shoulda been a natural, coming as i did from a family of athletes--my father had played baseball in college, his brother had been a college and pro quarterback, their young cousin alvin was a high-school football star who'd go on to quarterback at baylor--hell, my family was lousy with outstanding athletes, and as the firstborn of the latest generation (and literally from the moment i was born),

expectations for me ran high.

sadly, by the time young mike signed up for his season with the stars, it was pretty clear to everybody that he was hopeless at sports.

and it wasn't merely that i was clumsy and uncoordinated; bigger problem was, i found the whole athlete thing really tedious and boring.

and more than a little scary.  i remember that first week of batting practice i'd step up to the plate, those balls would come whizzing past me--way too fast and way too close--and i'd freeze.

[i remember i kept waiting for mr. harberger or mr. ramsey (or maybe even my father) to notice, take me aside and coach me through my fear, but that shit only happens in movies.]

whatever; by the second week of the season, i'd been relegated to last at-bat when we were up, and center field [because no nine-year-old ever hit out that far] when we weren't.  this arrangement would work well--until the last and most important game of the summer, anyway.

and it's at this point in the story where my mother's memory takes over.

to hear her tell it, everybody's there that day--not only the usual moms in their lawn chairs, but most of the dads have taken off work because it's the championship or some such shit.  and it's gonna be close--the teams are pretty evenly matched, so tensions are running high.

and the game lives up to its promise:  inning after inning, the teams match each other run for run, until

in the bottom of the final inning the stars are one run up, the other team's at bat, they've got two outs and one man on, this big, fat kid steps up to the plate--and on the second pitch, he absolutely and unbelievably creams one straight out to center field.

center field--young mike's chance to shine at last.

as the ball cracks off the fat kid's bat and arcs majestically upward, every eye turns to its inevitable destination--and suddenly every mother, father, sister and brother from birdwood road are on their feet, screaming

mike, mike, MIKE, MIKE!!!


i'd love to tell you, gentle readers, that young mike caught that goddam ball; hell, i'd happily settle for telling you he gave it his all and missed.

but the sad truth is, apparently young mike was far more interested in a high-flying jet passing overhead than anything that was happening around him.

yeah, that's right--in the midst of all the excitement, i apparently stood there dumbly gawking up at the sky, oblivious of the screams from the crowd--much less the game-winning losing ball which bounced harmlessly to earth within ten feet of my limp, useless glove and rolled away.

stevie or davy or somebody--i dunno who--ran out, snagged the ball and threw it in, but of course by then it was too late--the game was over, and the stars had lost.

and since back in those halcyon days little league wasn't the blood sport it is today, young mike was allowed to live.

[sorry if the dénouement of this story was a little flat--trust me, my mother's version is much funnier.]

*     *     *     *     *

flash-forward several years:  i'm bigger, stronger and angrier, and i've got a bat in my hands for the first time in years.

it's only high-school P.E. softball, so the balls are big, underhand and slow.  doesn't matter--i've got something to prove, even if it's only to myself.

i wait for the right pitch, and when it comes, i swing with all my might and connect with a solid, satisfying thwack--a double, easy.  all of a sudden, i understand that feeling i missed out on way back when.

by the time i round second, i'm grinning in triumph--it's only then that i look around and realize i'm all alone out there; everybody else is running toward home for some reason.

i trot back to find out why, push my way through the crowd and see the catcher rolling around on the ground in agony, clutching his knees--turns out instead of dropping the bat after creaming that ball out to center field, in my excitement i'd slung it backwards instead.

*     *     *     *     *

to grant knight [i couldn't name five people i went to high school with today if you held a gun to my head, but i'll never forget him]:  if it's any consolation, (a) i'm still sorry, and (b) i haven't gone near a baseball diamond since.

and to the guy at work who couldn't shut up about his son's little-league team the other day and asked me if i'd ever played:  thanks, asshole, for dredging up this post.