BASEBALL

LEE

My papa wasn’t much, understand. He

didn’t have the gift in him what makes
people feel for each other. He couldn’t
understand why some people felt bad for
others. “No one ever felt sorry for me
and I’m just fine,” he liked to say. He
sure did extend that philosophy to me
and my sister in kind.

He had something akin to pride for my

sister, mind, because she had his gift
for athletics. He’d gotten into the
Minors after high school but it never
went much further than that. He liked
to blame that one on me, since I’m the
elder. Mama got knocked up when she was
seventeen and he was rounding twenty-
one. Something of note I’ve learned is
that kids get blamed for a lot of
things that aren’t their fault, and the
main one is being born.

Papa took me to baseball games my whole

childhood and made me pay attention to
the outfielders, which is where he
spent a lot of time when he was in the
Minors, I guess. “You took me away from
this, Kid. You get to take my place.”
And oh my, he was serious. Every night
after work we were in the backyard,
pitching back and forth, losing balls
in the shadows under the street light.

I was dismal at baseball, which I am

not ashamed to admit, no sir. Coach
knew it, I knew it, and near everyone
at my high school knew it. Papa got his
wish in that I spent a lot of time in
the outfield, but that was really more

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 (CONT.)
to keep the other players safe from my
pitching.

I never heard Papa yelling during my

games, but I am told that much of it
was inappropriate for a family-friendly
venue. Me, all I felt was a strange mix
of fear of disappointing him and
pleasure that he came at all. Everyone
knew by then how much he wanted me to
be good. You could tell how bad I was
doing by how drunk he got during a
game. Driving home afterwards was
always something of an adventure.

My last game, I asked Coach to let me

bat. My wild tosses from the outfield
only ever made it halfway to the
diamond, so I couldn’t be any worse
with a bat in my hand. He okayed it
because in high school sometimes people
put your feelings ahead of your
abilities, which wasn’t common in my
life up to that point. So I got up to
bat and I positioned my feet a few
inches from the plate and I stuck out
my hip and I gripped the bat like I’d
seen my teammates do a thousand times.
I remember not hearing the crowd. Just
crickets and the gritty sound of dust
under my feet and my breath too loud. I
looked up at the pitcher and he grinned
at me like he knew me—like we were two
friends who were sharing a joke, and he
knew everything to say just right in
order to make me laugh.

He threw the ball straight as an arrow.

And a bit soft, honestly, which I only
really understood later. And I swung
from the shoulder like it wasn’t even
mine and the way the ball smacked
against the wood sent vibrations all
the way up my arms into my teeth. The
ball didn’t make it that far, mind, but
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 (CONT.)
I didn’t know that. I was still dealing
with the sensation of aiming for
something and hitting it, the way it
felt like a target in the middle of
your chest had been bulls-eyed.

People cheering came to me pretty

quickly after that. Someone in left
field dropped the ball trying to throw
it to first. I tossed the bat and ran
like anything. The other team came at
me pretty slow but I still only made it
to second base and I was tagged out
later trying to get to third, but what
did I care? Everything up to that point
had been a miracle. It felt like both
teams and everyone in the stands was on
my side.

When we got back into the car, my papa

gave me a smack that bloodied my nose.
“Our family isn’t a damned charity
case,” was all he said. He wouldn’t
look at me the rest of the drive home.

(Long pause. Considering)

That was twenty years ago. Sometimes

that feeling comes to me again, the
injustice of it all, so quick on the
heels of my only victory to that point.
There’s nothing to do really with all
that impotency and rage, so when I feel
that way I just hug my children, I hug
them.

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