He was carrying on his own little baseball game, by himself.
The real game was on the regular baseball diamond-a “machine pitch”
game featuring eight and nine-year-olds.
He was carrying on his own little baseball game, by himself.
The real game was on the regular baseball diamond-a “machine pitch”
game featuring eight and nine-year-olds. For those whose children are grown
but have not produced grandkids, a “machine pitch” game utilizes a
baseball pitching machine rather than a young human. Such machines are far more
accurate than an eight-year-old’s arm that is as likely to send the ball
ten feet above home plate as dribble one over, and not even he knows which one
is coming.
The youngster’s just-older brother was playing in the real game. It was
exciting as baseball games go, but not exciting enough to hold the attention
of an active seven-year-old. How boring can something be that involves watching
an older brother doing something you want to do?
The younger brother had much rather have been in uniform and on the field than
sitting with a bunch of stodgy adults who kept urging their offsprings to “Be
a hitter!” and “Way to swing! Now, put that on the ball!” and
“Keep your eye on the ball!”
Playing in the real game being beyond his reach, he decided to play his own
baseball game behind the home plate screen. The only problem was, there was
no other youngster with whom to play. So, he threw the ball into the air and
tried to smack it as it fell. Or, he would throw the ball upward as high as
he possibly could and then try to catch it, usually unsuccessfully. It was,
undoubtedly, the World Series…in his imagination.
Having been in his position, I decided to be magnanimous and give him someone
to play with. I left my folding chair and told him, “Here, I’ll play
with you for a while.”
He liked that. We began to play catch. A game of catch between a seven-year-old
and an old man with bursitis in his throwing shoulder is not a thing of beauty.
Still, we played.
He had to be impressed. Here was a grown man leaving his chair to play with
a wandering seven-year-old urchin who had no one else with whom to play.
Then my young friend said, “Let’s go get in the batting cage. We
can still see the game and I can be the catcher.”
We walked over to the batting cage-a few tall poles covered with fishing
net kind of stuff-and he got behind the plate like a very young Yogi Berra.
I began slowly “smoking” them over.
Other adults certainly were looking at me with admiration. Here I was, a grown
man in decent clothes, playing catch with a small boy when no one else would.
After a few pitches, another seven-year-old appeared out of nowhere. He lifted
the netting and stepped in. My playmate asked, “You wanna play?” The
other seven-year-old allowed he did.
My previous playmate looked at me and said, “You can go sit down, now,
and I’ll play with him.”
I felt used. My young friend knew the other small boy whom I did not even see
would find the temptation to play catch in the batting cage too great to resist.
Sort of like Tom Sawyer painting the fence. The minute that seven-year-old stranger
walked into the batting cage, I was finished. Through. Unneeded. Kaput.
Paul, in Romans 12:3, warned me “not to think more highly of myself than
I ought to think…” My magnanimity was only in my mind.
I walked over and sat down in my folding chair beside my wife and watched the
real game, and the other game out of the corner of my eye.