Bravery at Third and Home

I’m not sure which it is: do we  learn early on that certain things go together or do we more figure it out?  When it comes to having a PB & J sandwich I actually prefer having fluff over jelly, and the person who sat next to me at the lunch table most days in high school liked putting mayonnaise to his peanut butter.  Now did he just figure that combo out (because I never would have), or did his grandmother spoil him with mayonnaise like mine spoiled me with fluff?  (The word “spoil” might be totally misplaced in this illustration!)  I don’t know which it is.  Oscar Hammerstein once wrote, “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.  You’ve got to be taught from year to year.  It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear.  You’ve got to be carefully taught.”  I don’t think the assumption here is that one must be taught to hate and fear because it’s unnatural.  Like it’s a once in a lifetime learning opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.  For human experience tells us, and dictates to us sadly, that being hated and feared are foregone conclusions.  Sometime, somewhere, someone, perhaps your own self, is going to find reason to hate and fear you.  Whether it begins with a hatred that turns to fear or a fear that turns to hatred, we don’t have to learn their names or faces.  We’ll know them when we see them. So what is it that must be taught?  Is it that we must be taught who and what to hate and fear?  As if the mere existence of hatred and fear isn’t toxic enough, we must be taught where and how to get the most bang for our buck.  The setting for Hammerstein’s words was the South Pacific in World War II.  I suppose in that time and place hatred and fear were tragically regarded as necessary defense mechanisms against being bombed again, against being surprised by hatred and having to live in fear again.  I’m glad though that the lyric doesn’t go, “You’ve got to learn to hate and fear,” because so long as it’s something I’ve got to be taught, I’d just assume skip class today.

I’ve titled this post, Bravery at Third and Home.  I’m playing on a softball team this spring.  (It’s a church softball team and so the degree to which the word “softball” applies may be debatable by some.  But the word “team” is as good as gospel truth.)  Running down fly balls, instinctively jolting left or right at the crack of the bat, pounding palm to mitt–all remind me of how good the game is for me, and how, in spite of my lackluster play, I am good for the game.    That both of these statements are true at the same time is a testimony to my dad, and here’s how: my dad is the fluff to baseball ball’s peanut butter.  In his own days of little league glory, my dad was a legend.  He is known to have pitched a game once in which he made every out there was to make.  He did it by striking out every batter but one.  In six total innings of play he whizzed the ball by 17 of 18 whiffers.  As for the one person who got a piece of the action, they hit a pop fly…to the pitcher!  In high school my dad is said to have shattered a batting helmet with his fastball (no heads are known to have been connected to the helmet at the time of contact!).  Had it not been for an unfortunate car accident leading to a broken neck…

Fast forward 10 years and my dad is standing back on the mound.  I’m sitting on home plate, literally.  “Don’t move,” he tells me.  Don’t move, I think.  Are you insane?  What if the ball comes in low?  What if I have to jump to catch it?  What if I have to jump to avoid it?  Can I at least kneel?  “No.  Keep your butt on the ground.”  That day, and everyday thereafter–spring, summer, and fall–my dad threw the ball right at my head.  I swear, a 6-cylinder Ford couldn’t have kept up with that thing.

In eighth grade I broke a bone in my left hand playing back yard football and had to take my first baseball season off in 7 years.  Honestly, I didn’t miss it.  I was kind of relieved actually.  I loved playing ball with my dad.  I loved knowing how to catch anything he threw at me.  But beyond this, I wasn’t very good.  I knew that in a year my 5 foot 2 inch, 90 pound freshman frame wouldn’t be able to hit the ball  beyond shortstop and my arm couldn’t throw for hard for long.  It’s not that I didn’t have it in me to try for the team anyway.  Or at least this is what I tell myself 18 years later.  Either way, anyway, I didn’t, and the goodness of that decision came to me, as it has before but perhaps never so mercifully, this past week at softball practice.  I was standing in right field, pounding palm to mitt, when the ball was popped up on the first base line.  I noticed that the person playing third put their glove up, as if to catch a ball that was flying 90 feet in an opposite direction.  A couple pitches later and the ball was popped up again, this time along the third base line.  The same player put their mitt up again, but didn’t move.  The ball fell about 3 feet to their right.  This is when I realized they couldn’t see the ball, and when I knew who it was.  We’d met at the church several months earlier.  A newcomer to the area, this elusive third basemen (were they brave? fearless? stupid? I was soon to find out) and I were both native New Englanders and soulful Red Sox fans.  What brought them to the area is perhaps a story for another telling.  What matters is what brought them out to softball practice.  That they loved the game and could spout statistical analysis on every major leaguer since Babe Ruth was not it.  That before the kids grew up and the family broke up they coached and cheered at every game, match, and meet was not it.  That cancer had taken their ability to see very well anymore was obviously not it.  That after missing the pop-up at third they still took batting practice, only to lay the bat down on home plate after just two pitches and flop down in the grass beyond the dugouts, surely that was not it either.  What made them do it?

Everyone in the outfield just stood there, murmuring and confused.  “Should we cheer for them, give ’em a little pep talk?  Two pitches?  That’s all they’re going to give themselves?  What should we do for them?”  I didn’t know but what to do first.  I jogged my way across the infield and sat down beside them in the grass.  “I had to try,” they said.  So that was it.  They were willing to risk the darkness, to stand on the third base line where the ball might come whizzing by faster than a Ford?  For all they couldn’t see, they might as well have just sat their butt on home plate.  All this just to be able to say they’ve still got a good inning or two left in them.  “I’ll just take this glove back to the store tomorrow and tell them it didn’t work for me,” they said.  I just sat there in silence.  From where I sat, the glove worked like no glove I’d ever worn.  “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked them.  “Did someone teach you to do that or did you just figure it out?”  “To do what?” they said.  “To say you’re a baseball player just because you have a glove.  Bravest damned thing I’ve ever seen.”

Hatred, fear, bravery.  Does someone teach us the difference or do we just figure it out?  Which is it?  I’m not sure it matters.  Bravest damned thing I’ve ever seen.