Between the Lines: A Father, A Son, and America's Pastime

Imagine a baseball park that holds millions of fans. The outfield fence is thousands of feet from home plate. Twelve-year-olds are eight feet tall and can throw the ball 200 miles per hour.
Such a place exists. I played there when I was 10. It’s one of dozens of small fields that dot the west side of Evansville, in the southwest tip of Indiana, where thousands of kids play baseball every summer. Yet it seemed like the whole world could fit between those base lines. Twice a week for two hours, it did.

I remember how cool my first uniform was. I remember which coaches would pat me on the back even when I struck out, and which ones would yell at me. I remember which coaches told the little guys not to swing because they couldn’t hit. I remember what it felt like to be a nine-year-old playing against 12-year-olds, and the sting of hearing the opposing coach holler, “Easy out!” I remember how proud I was when an opposing coach would yell, “Back up. Good hitter,” to his players. I always knew my mother was in the stands … and my father was not.

When I was 30 years old, a friend asked me to help coach his son’s baseball team. It had been a long time since I played baseball, but the game hadn’t changed. I hadn’t forgotten about balls and strikes, hits and outs, and how to win games. That’s all there is to it, right? Sure, I can coach baseball. So I did.

Several years later I coached in a league located just a few miles from Evansville West Little League, where I played. A coach from West asked if I was interested in playing a practice game against his team (A coach from West and I arranged for our teams to play a practice game against each other). So I returned to that field for the first time since I was twelve years old. This time, I was the coach of twelve boys, age 10-12. The sign hanging on the outfield fence said “185 feet.” The top of the wooden bleachers was only six rows up, and they were empty. Could this possibly be the same field?

As the young ball players walked to the plate to face live pitching for the first time, they looked down the third base line to the coach’s box, where I stood. They turned to me for signals, advice, a word of encouragement, or merely to see a friendly face. Some looked to me for a place to hide. I could see it in their eyes: There it was…that field where the fence was more than a thousand feet away, and where at least a million fans screamed in the stands. I knew that whatever I said at that moment, whatever I said after they struck out or hit a home run, would probably remain in their minds for the rest of their lives.

A few more years went by, and my friend no longer coached with me. His son was graduating from high school, and I was getting married. But I still coached and looked forward to the day when a son of my own would be included on the roster.

After three years and countless dashed hopes, an infertility specialist told my wife, Cathy, and me that we could never have our own biological child. Months later, an expectant mother told us that she had changed her mind; she would not adopt her child to us after all. Six months after that, it happened again. I was still coaching — and dealing with the hurt and disappointment of knowing I may never be a dad. I would never coach my child’s baseball team, or write “Shrode” on a lineup card. Then one afternoon, I got a call from a friend. A partner in his legal firm had been contacted by a young woman who was unable to keep the child she was expecting to deliver soon. Adoptive parents had been chosen for her baby, but she felt uneasy about the adoption arrangement. Through a series of events that can only be called miraculous, this selfless woman selected us to be the beneficiaries of the most precious gift imaginable.

Two weeks later, our son was born. His name is Sam. “Sam” is a good, solid, down-to-earth “barber shop” name — like Gus and Ed and Bill. Samuel means “gift from God.”
Sam is my son and I’m his father, and his coach. Now I write “Shrode” on the lineup card every game.

Sam has changed everything. My view of the world has become both immeasurably larger and infinitesimally smaller than it was before. I’ve learned to see through the penetratingly deep brown eyes of a little boy (again). Yet, I still feel that most of life’s dreams and fears, hopes and challenges, joyful conquests and painful losses are mirrored in the game of baseball. It’s all right there: in the taste of dirt as you slide into home plate; the sweet-stale smell of a favorite leather glove; the thwack of bat against ball, and the strange sensation of flying when you hear the words, “Over the fence! It’s gone!”; the sounds of hands clapping, cheers and taunts; stands full of spectators, both friend and foe; the ache in your chest when a hard-fought game ends with an “L” behind your team’s name; and the emerald-green grass that leaves indelible reminders on the knees and elbows of once-white uniforms, of brilliant saves and valiant tries. The whole world really is contained right there, between those base lines.

What I remember most about Little League has little to do with baseball. It has almost nothing to do with balls and strikes, hits and outs, or winning games. The “best” coaches are not those who know the most about the game, but those who know something about the players, who focus less on coaching baseball and more on coaching kids.

Now I’m the coach. I’m not perfect. I’ve never made a video and I’m probably not qualified to be hired by the local high school. Many coaches know a lot more about baseball than I do. I don’t always know what to say. But I used to be a kid, and kids know what makes a good coach or a bad one. I had both.

I’m not sure why, but I vividly remember events from my childhood as though they happened only days ago. In particular, I remember being a Little League baseball player. There is probably a psychological explanation for it, but the important thing is that these experiences had a life-long effect. Somewhere between adolescence and the age of 30, I had forgotten some of those valuable lessons. They had been buried beneath the obligations of adulthood. I’m lucky, though. During 22 years of coaching I’ve had hundreds of kids, and now Sam, to help me remember.

Baseball is at the center of those long-ago memories that formed and shaped who I am. For you, it might be football, tennis or golf, band or the speech team. Maybe it’s academics or your best friends, or simply the joy of being young. Whatever it is, I hope these stories help you remember.

We all have stories to tell, but to find their deeper meaning, sometimes we have to look between the lines.