Strike Three!

Sports had no real meaning for me until spring of the third grade. My parents picked me up from school and had a surprise for me, my own baseball glove, something we had never discussed.

Right there, in that sentence, real baseball players just blew a fuse: “Nobody can buy a baseball glove for another person!” I totally understand, but the rules are a little different for a 9-year-old who has never caught or properly thrown a ball before.

To make my story sadder still, they had signed me up for Little League baseball.

Wait. The sad part was that it was too late to go through tryouts. As I understood it, kids would show off their skills and teams would pick them. It sounded just like the schoolyard stories of kids who were always picked last.

Considering I had never caught a ball with a glove or swung a bat at a pitch or attempted a genuine throw … I recognized right off that missing the tryouts might have been a blessing.

In absentia, I was drafted by the Apaches.

Highlight reel

I played two years with the Apaches and two with their older league team, the Warriors (different times, all right?), with little distinction. In fact, only my second year had anything memorable to it.

My batting average that year was something like .276 … nothing stupendous but respectable enough. I think that was the year I hit a double. That’s right, in four years I had only one extra-base hit, knocking one to the left-centerfield fence off one of the league’s best pitchers. Bottom line, he threw hard enough that me just getting a bat on it put the ball to the fence.

But the real highlight came on defense.

I was playing right field, which, I swear, was not my usual position. A fly ball headed to the gap between me and centerfield, which happened to be covered by my brother, Ward. We both raced toward it, I made a leap, stretching my glove across my body and as high as I could.

Thud!

I came down with the ball. Everything seemed to be spinning, but I saw our second baseman – Chuck, I believe – coming out to me and I thew it in. Ward congratulated me and I shook it off … no big deal; this is why we’re here.

But I knew this game was special.

A local radio station aired several ball games each year, making it a point to cover every team at least once. I remember the schedule printout noted on it which games would be on radio.

This was our game.

But the reason that was important to me was the hope my grandmother was listening.

All the way through high school, Ward and I tried to talk Mama Martaindale into coming to one of our baseball or football games. She was steadfast, though, claiming she was afraid she’d see one of us injured.

That night, she could see it on the radio. No injuries.

Out!

Then there was the time I struck out, looking at a called third strike.

I was crushed. There may have been a tear. I mean, I knew that pitch was a ball.

After the game, we were headed to the car when the home plate umpire caught up with me. I knew him through my dad.

He apologized, telling me he blew the call. That should have been a ball, he said, but he felt that once he made the call, he couldn’t really change it.

I understood … I really did.

I also knew that he didn’t have to track me down to make that confession.

There were many lessons wrapped up in that experience.