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

As a child, I didn’t know the date of Father’s Day. I knew my friend Bob couldn’t come out and play because his family celebrated with his dad. I’d walk past his house anyway, hoping he would see me. When he didn’t come out I’d hang out in the tree house; or ride my bike – alone.

When I got older, each year someone would ask me if I sent a Father’s Day card to my dad. “Oh, I’m sorry,’ they’d say as they remembered that my father died when I was in high school.

“That’s okay.” And it was. I wasn’t sad about his death. I didn’t really know him. Nothing was lost; there was nothing to miss. Sometimes I felt sad because I never knew him. Then I would say, “I think I’ll send one to my mother. She was the best father a guy could ask for.”

Sam can’t stand it any longer. He’s just too anxious to give me my fathers’ day presents. So I’m awakened by an oversized birthday gift bag with a picture of a baseball glove on the side; it lands on my stomach. It is followed immediately by Sam, who tipped the bag over, spilling all my gifts onto the bed. First I see a coffee maker, which would be put to good use very soon. The other “gifts” scattered on the bed include a breakfast bar, TV remote control, a directory of Sam’s pre-school class, and a large envelope full of information from our realtor.

I also see a collage that, I suspect, his mother helped him put together. It’s a collage of pictures she took during last baseball season. There were shots of him throwing, hitting, running, wearing the catcher’s equipment, sliding into home and, of course, drinking his hard-earned Double Cola after a game. Miraculously, none of these photos includes the chain link fence that appears in nearly all baseball pictures. The fence is what separates real baseball players who wear uniforms from the rest of the world.

In the upper left corner is a shot of Sam at bat and me pitching. I’m on one knee about halfway between home plate and the pitcher’s mound (that’s where the ground is softest). The ball is in mid-air; and by the way Sam is focused, I’m sure he hit it way out there.

There’s something else about the picture that strikes me. Sam is playing baseball and I’m coaching and pitching to him. He’s five and in his second year of t-ball, and it will never happen just like that again. But we have a picture of it and that picture is on my collage. What a great gift I received that Fathers’ Day, that third Sunday in June.

Wait a minute – April 23 is moving day! After a lifetime on Evansville’s west side, we’re moving to Newburgh, a small town just east of Evansville.

That morning, my brain quick-pitches questions: “Where’s Sam’s hat?” “Are we packed for the move?” “Wow, my son’s first game…will my moving helpers show up?” “Where’s my hat?” “Did we remember to have the utilities switched?” “Do I have all the baseball equipment?” “Why…why…did I put regular gasoline in a diesel U-Haul?”

Sam takes left field. His defensive stance is perfect. I only make one small coaching adjustment: “Sam, face this way.” Our pitcher, Grace, proceeds to gobble up everything that is hit forward − and some that are not. She makes about seven throwouts to first base in the first inning. Still, we’re in the customary 12-run hole. I’m confident we can make a comeback.

Yet, my mind returns to "is there any way we’ll get everything moved today?"

To make life a bit simpler, we bat in the order of the players’ numbers. Sam wanted the shirt with the line and the circle, so he bats 10th. Our leadoff hitter, Kelsey, smacks a ground ball and runs to the correct base…a proud moment for any coach. Amazing Grace comes up a little later and clears the bases. During the next few batters, I can’t keep my mind from trying to figure out how much repairs would be to that U-Haul I’d filled up with the wrong fuel.

I look to the dugout. Sam is coming to the plate. He struts to the batter’s box and steps in. He spreads his feet, lifts his bat and puts on his mean face. He’s ready. I load the ball on the tee. He looks up at me for direction. I stand there and watch him. Sam, my son and now my left fielder, is about to hit for the first time in a “real” game. I can’t bring myself to tell him to swing because once he does, his first-ever at-bat will be over.

Finally, I give him the go ahead and he hits a line drive toward the gap between first and second. About eight fielders are gathered there. “Please get through, please get through,” I say to myself. It does and Sam gets to stay on first...legitimately.

Jack, our 12th batter, eventually steps in. He taps one that rolls up the middle. Since he is the final batter we let him just keep running the bases until he scores or gets tagged out. Sam is on second base. He stops and watches to ball trickle past him before leaving second, so by the time he reaches home, the 11th and 12th batters are right on his heels. But rather than take any chances, he slides. He comes to a complete stop three feet from the plate. The ump shouts, “Safe!” Just to be sure, he sits up and rolls forward, lands on his belly and slaps the plate with his hand. A perfect head-first slide.

Through the cloud of dust I can see Sam smiling. Then I and see Ben and Jack barreling toward home. “Sam, get up. There are runners behind you!”

Satisfied that he was safe and sufficiently covered with dirt, he stands up. We high five and he exclaims, “I did it, daddy!” So he not only got the best hit, but the biggest laugh of the inning as well. After one inning, the score is tied, 12-12.

Sam collected two more line drive hits. In the field, Coach Tim makes him aware that a ground ball is heading his way. He shows a lot of hustle chasing it down in the outfield, only to get trampled by Nicholas in deep center just before he reached it. “Nicholas, great play and I love your hustle, but you’re the third baseman,” I say. Sam suffered only minor psychosomatic injuries to his knee.

The game ends in a 36-36 tie. Sam and I pack our stuff and leave the field. Once outside the fence, more important things call him…his free Double Cola, candy and the teeter totter. Cathy says to me, “You ready to start moving?”

That’s right, we're moving. For a moment, I had forgotten.

That evening, in our new house, Sam sits on the floor next to me with his uniform still on − hat, cleats and all. He’s exhausted after playing three full innings of baseball and "helping the big strong worker guys do the work" as he puts it. I look over to see if he’s sleeping. He notices me, returns my glance and says, “It sure was a great day, daddy.”

It sure was, Sam. It sure was.

It is a good practice…just Sam and me.

I hit fly balls to him in the outfield, because he needs to practice catching and slamming into the wall like New York Yankees centerfielder Johnny Damon. Apparently, slamming into the wall is necessary even on ground balls that don’t make it to the wall. We use tennis balls, because they don’t hurt as much when he practices taking one on the chin.

I hit one ball so high that Sam says it hit the clouds. It brings back the time when Doc Branson’s son, Bix, used to throw balls into the clouds for me at the one-base field on Doc’s lot. I think he must have been a pro baseball player. Doc kept a catcher’s glove in the back of his garage, right next to the hole that his dog, Lucky, used as a passage when it was raining or when he got too hot. It must have been the glove Bix used in the pros. Doc said I could use it anytime, as long as I put it back. Sometimes, when Lucky was lying by that hole in the garage, I had to throw the glove back in its place, because when he saw me coming he would look up at me and show his teeth. I thought he was going to bite me, but Doc said he just wanted somebody to scratch his butt.

One time, Bix threw a ball up into the clouds. I got under it and held the glove straight over my head. I usually caught his tosses, but this one tipped the end of the catcher’s glove, skimmed the top of my head and landed behind me. “Didn’t hurt,” I mumbled.
After that, Bix never wanted to throw the ball up for me anymore…maybe he hurt his arm.
Maybe we should have used tennis balls.

Sam walks into the shed and decks out in full catcher’s gear. He needs practice for the game tomorrow. He learns how to balance the face mask on top of his head when he walks out to the pitcher, then lower it without using his hands by jerking his head down…like Johnny Damon. Pitcher and cener field; that Johnny Damon is everywhere.

A big cloud blocks out the last few minutes of daylight. I return the catcher’s equipment to the shed, because if we wait too long it will get too dark for me to see the numbers on the lock and we won’t be able get back in there. As I walk back to toss the last few pitches of batting practice, Sam runs out to greet me. He sings “Happy, happy.” I’m not sure if this is some version of “Happy Birthday” (Sam’s been singing Happy Birthday to me since the days when it was pronounced Happy Doodee) or that song from Ren and Stimpy. Either way, he’s happy. He grabs my hand and skips along with me, singing “Happy, happy” all the way back to the field.

I’ll be watching Sam play baseball for many years, but I wonder how much longer he’ll want to hold my hand and sing “Happy, happy.”

It was a good practice…just Sam and me.

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.”

Youth baseball coaches are happiest when we throw dirt on something. We put dirt on the infield, on the pitcher’s mound, in the batter’s box. If it rains, we sprinkle some more dirt out there. If there’s a puddle, we toss some dirt in it. If a kid breaks his arm, we rub some dirt on it; he’ll be fine.

The season always starts with truckloads of dirt piles on the infield. At the first work day we stand around with rakes in our hands; somehow, that dirt gets spread out evenly. We leave a big pile of dirt outside the fence so we can throw dirt on everything when it rains…when we’re bored…when we need to look like we know what we’re doing. When that pile is gone, we truck another in.

All of which begs the question: Where does all that dirt go?

Griffin is one of those kids who is made to play sports….or be an actor. He can play nearly every position − at the same time. He dives for every ball, whether it’s hit to him or not. He lies there motionless after every play until his dad asks him if he’s okay…or he says, “Griffin, get up.”

After one game, Griffin is walking to the car with his parents. He is covered in dirt…which had become mud in the sweaty spots and where he dribbled his free drink. The outline of the baseline ran from his right hip across his back to his left shoulder, and up to the side of his hat…compelling evidence that he played third base that game.

Griffin arrives at the next game ready to play. His shirt, hat, pants and socks are spotless. To Griffin, that clean uniform is a blank canvas. That solves a long-standing baseball mystery. Where does all that dirt go? It ends up in Griffin’s mom’s washing machine.

We’re getting our pictures taken Saturday; I drive to the field to pick up our uniforms. We don’t have practice before then, so we’ll conduct the annual ritual of passing out jerseys and changing in the car on picture day. Sam joins me, because this is a very important part of baseball. Last year he received the number with the line and the circle and he wants to make sure he gets it again. This year it’s a “ten” and he knows how to “spell” it.

Practices are over for the day; so the fields are empty. Sam wants to hit some balls on the real field. After he swings at 52 pitches – 24 tee balls and 28 tennis balls – the sun is setting behind home plate. Sam can still see to hit, but I can’t see to catch the balls before they hit me. He thinks he needs a few more swings, so I throw 28 more pitches…all tennis balls.

As coach, I declare practice over. As dad, I say it’s time to go home.

We search the field for the balls, and drop them into the standard plastic five-gallon bucket that all real coaches keep in their cars at all times. We’re walking off the field when Sam says, “Look at the sky…green, red, orange, yellow, blue.” Silhouettes of the fences and bleachers of the big kids’ field hover in the distance, along with the occasional squeal of serious baseball players squeezing out their last bit of practice breaks the silence.

Sam walks up next to me and takes the bucket from me, because, he surmises, my pitching arm is probably tired. He reaches up and holds my hand, looks up from under the bill of his new gray real baseball hat with the “N” on it and says, “Thanks, daddy…I mean coach…coach daddy.”

If you’re lucky, baseball is a tradition your father shared with you. And if you’re really lucky, it’s something you pass on to your son. Baseball is a sport of history and tradition starting with the myth of Admiral Doubleday, wool uniforms, the Yankees vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers, Wrigley Field, Babe Ruth and Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, and the Negro Leagues. The players are different, but “baseball” hasn’t changed. Nor will moments like this, moments that baseball gives fathers and sons.

“Daddy?”
“Yeah, buddy.”
“Can we go to Starbucks?”
Perhaps a few things have changed.