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

I don’t always know what’s in those equipment bags that all serious tee ball players carry, but Sam tells me it’s “important baseball stuff.” I’m not quite that cool. I own the standard canvas team equipment bag with a drawstring. Some of my important stuff gets lost because my bag has a hole worn in the bottom of it from four-foot-tall players helping me take it to my car.


Sam and I decide it is time to clean out those bags. We turn them over and dump everything out. First, Sam pulls out two bats – one black official tee ball league model, the other a yellow Fisher-Price. From my bag falls one team bat that nobody uses, and five helmets – three of which still have some padding.


From another compartment, Sam removes his helmet, glove and two Power Ranger action figures that he received on his fourth birthday. In mine I find two catcher’s helmets, two chest protectors, and a glove left behind at the last practice.

“Look, Daddy.” Sam discovers an official Little League baseball still in the plastic, plus a tennis ball, wiffle ball, a tee ball that had been run over by a lawn mower, sweatbands and a Ninja Turtle. From my bag, I pull out a couple official tee balls, three batting gloves – one white pair and one left-handed black one – and a Ninja Turtle.

“There it is!” Sam grabs the black left-handed batter’s glove from my hand and holds it up next to the one black right-handed glove that he pulled from his bag. “Do you have anymore of my stuff?”

I turn my equipment bag upside down and shake it. Out fall three shin guards, four lineup cards from past games, two pens, unsold raffle tickets, a cloud of dust, some grass and a few rocks he collected from the parking lot at the ballpark. He says they’re crystals. “What else do you have, Sam?”

He finds two caps – one blue with a “G” on it and one gray with an “N.” He also removes a jacket, a pair of Spiderman sunglasses, and my keys to the equipment shed at the field we played at last year.

“Sam, give me those keys. I wondered where those things were.”
“How did they get in my bag?”
“Not sure, buddy.”
“What else do you have, daddy?”
I reach in and pull out my wrinkled and dirty gray hat with an “N” on it.
“Daddy, you’re supposed to wear that so everyone knows you’re on my team.”
“It’s a little too dirty.”

“Sam, what’s that?” At the bottom of his bag is a piece of paper. He grabs it, unfolds it, and shows it to me. I see two stick figures with maroon shirts; it looks like they’re holding hands. “You’re the big one, and that’s me,” he says.
“What are we doing, playing baseball?”
“No, we’re walking to the car. We just had a hard game. Look, we’re both wearing our hats.”
I pick up my dusty gray hat with the “N” on it, slap it across my knee and put it on my head.
“So all this is important stuff, huh?
“Yep.”
“Hey, where’s your fielder’s glove?”
“I don’t know.”