Baseball Player

I wanted my son to be a baseball player, not for the money, but for the elegance of the game, the rhythm of it, pitch after pitch, rounding the bases, sometimes not rounding the bases, the lesson of teamwork, of disappointing turns at bat and the desire to keep playing, to improve at glacial speed, moving the index finger to the left or right of the stitching before throwing a pitch, pushing your hips forward two inches for a more powerful at bat, the spit, the pats from the guys in the dugout, the ones you loathe but who hit a homer during the playoffs and get your team that much closer to a pennant, the victory of winning, the glory that God made men and men made a sport that was perfect, a march, a diamond of movement, counter-clockwise from April to October, maybe even a ton of money if you can play third base, catch a line drive and throw to second for a double, or field a grounder and throw to first, or play first and get a guy out every inning, switch to bat left in a pinch, bunt to advance the runner in the 7th inning, or sacrifice a fly for a run or two, sacrifice your own stats for the good of the team, know when to hold back and when to execute with full gusto, how to manage your own excellence because it isn’t about hitting it the furthest, it’s about finesse, about sophistication, about sometimes sitting out a whole season because of a players’ strike or a pandemic, and how you can still love the game through all the sponsorship and politics, a game with just enough brutality to make it the best evolution of competition, a series of seasons with millions of fans looking on, hypnotized by the tempo of home runs, strike outs and walks. Perhaps it’s a lot to ask of a small boy.