Now, any normal person could glance at me and see that I was a guy destined to play football. I looked like a football player, talked like one, and ran into things with a violence that suggested a natural linebacker. But I didn’t like football that much. Truth be told, I was just clumsy and always late. Hitting other people was OK, but getting hit by other people hurt. A lot. I was too cerebral for football, so I went to the Babe Ruth Baseball League tryouts for boys aged 13-16, and was drafted by the Elks Lodge, Post 1776.
But there were problems. The fact that I was 16 worked against me. Our coach wanted younger players who he could mold and train in the mysterious ways of the Diamond. This seemed altogether unnatural to me, since in football, the positions went to the biggest and the oldest. I was the second string center behind a guy who was the only player on our high school team who was divorced. But I didn’t complain because he was older and bigger than me and that‘s the way it was.
So sitting on the bench while a tiny, shy 13-year-old played center field made me bristle. I’ll admit I even ran into him a couple of times, accidentally, but he kept bouncing up and apologizing for being in my way. And every time we played, there he stood out in center field, and there I sat on the bench.
I guess I should add that I was a terrible baseball player. I could throw and I could catch, but I couldn’t hit a curve ball or judge a high pop fly’s trajectory. I was fast, but I had trouble rounding the bases, and so I always ended up in right field instead of between first and second. But to me, that didn’t matter. I was big, and that should have been enough.
So it was that on the fourth game of the season, I sat on the bench and watched the game. I had only been put into one game so far, as a pinch runner on third base in the last inning, and I was only there for one pitch. Our first baseman sent a fastball sailing into right field and I waltzed in, scoring the winning run without having to do much more than mosey down the base path. But I was determined to do my part. I knew that if I ever got into a game, I would dazzle the coach with my playmaking ability. I just needed a chance.
That chance came in game four. We were playing the Jay Cees, it was a pitcher’s duel, a 0-0 tie, and we couldn’t get a base runner who was fast enough to get into scoring position from first. So when Randy walked, the coach put me in as a pinch runner. I knew what he wanted, and I was going to do it. I was going to steal second base.
I took my lead. The Jay Cee’s pitcher had a glacial delivery, and their catcher was a guy from Chapel Hill who threw like a girl. This would be easy. The coach was doing something with his hands, I didn’t really know what. Maybe there were bees. The windup. The pitch. I was off.
I had never slid into a base before. I’d seen it a thousand times on TV though, and it looked easy. So when I approached the bag, I threw my feet forward, and hit the ground. But when I stopped sliding, I was still 15 feet from second base, so I got up, ran
some more and slid again. Then I was three feet from the bag. I covered that distance with a furious crawl, but the catcher could have walked the ball to second by then. The second baseman slapped my face with his glove and I was out. My coach was furious.
“Why did you try to steal second?” he demanded. “Our best hitter is up. I didn’t give you the sign to steal.”
“There’s a sign to steal?” I asked.
“Yes, there’s a sign to steal! What do you think this is?” and he did the bizarre hand gestures again.
“I thought you were being bothered by bees,” I replied.
“You don’t know any of the signs,” he screeched. “How am I supposed to let you bat if you don’t know the signs that mean to swing or take a pitch!”
“I have to let you tell me when to swing?” I asked. “But I’m right there. I see the pitch. I know when to swing.”
Alas, I was wrong. The coach knew when it was time for me to swing, and the time was never, since I never got off the bench again. I stuck around for five more games before I turned in my uniform. Baseball was too cerebral for me. It was just as well, since our football team’s first-team center had joined the Marines, so there was an opening on the offensive line that fall.
But I never forgot the main lesson of baseball: look for the signs. Signs are everywhere, and all we have to do is keep our eyes open and we’ll see them. I was explaining all this to my girlfriend, who was looking out her window and yearning for my dad’s car that would take me home. She mumbled something about needing to do her
homework, and then laundry, and then wash her hair, so she called six of my friends to come over and get me out of there. I spent a lot of time at her house, and I can still see her peering out the window. When she dumped me later that summer, I was shocked. I don’t know why it never worked out between us. Maybe I was too cerebral for her, too.
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