The Boy, The Label, The Game
I didn't see it coming, the hit, the runs, the lessons.
None of this is really about baseball, it is about me and you, a boy, his label and the beautiful thing that happened.
It is about the things we try to control, the things in the margins, the curve balls life throws at us.
His label makes us uncomfortable because he lives without a filter. At times he can be like a pressure cooker, when he reaches capacity his mouth bursts with words.
Words that boys shouldn't say, often inappropriate.
It is this sudden, unfiltered, raw part that makes me just nervous enough that I can almost talk myself out of going to the games. But this game, it isn't about me, it is about being the one who cheers on the side lines for another boy, my boy.
Me, the mom, I watch the boys father sit on the sidelines when he can be at the game. The bleachers are not really his seat, they are just the place he paces from while talking to himself because he can't stand it any longer. He begins to walk back and forth wringing his hands processing every single move the boy, his son, with the label makes. He gives direction, correction, he pleads and gives unwanted advise to every move the boy makes while he plays the game.
I am only sitting on the outside, on the inside I am holding my breath, pacing and pleading with the father of the boy with the label who plays the game.
Dear God, please. Please let this inning, this game be over.
And then, in my selfishness, out of the margins it lands in my stomach, this is how he must live every single day with the boy and his label in the game we play called life.
There is now a war going on in my head and my heart while my stomach flips and flops like a fish out of water.
Resisting the urge to leave, my mind drifts back to the conversations had during the draft process at the beginning of the season. There was much talk between the coaches about the boy with the label. I could feel that feeling again, you know the one you got standing on the play ground in elementary school while someone yelled, Red Rover, Red Rover". Your heart raced, please pick me, don't let me be last. Only now, I knew perfectly well the boy would be last, he was always last.
In this game that young boys play with their dads as coaches, or even in the game of life for that matter, we tend not to like the unpredictable things, but being put in a box tends to backfire as well. We hate to be controlled just as much as we hate being out of control.
This isn't different at our house, the only thing that is different is the fact that the coach lives at our house not just my boy who plays the game.
The coach would have to make a choice from the beginning, draft day. What to do with the boy, his label and the fact that he was part of his team. It was decided that he would play just like anyone on the team. The coach would have to help the father, who is a single parent, get the boy to the games. This game was one of those games, only this time if the boy with the label didn't come to the game they would forfeit. This "F" word or the other one for that matter are not in the coaches vocabulary. He would make sure the boy would play.
The day was beautiful, my work papers laid out in front of me on the picnic table would serve as the distraction from the fish flopping on the dock of my stomach. The game, it was a good one. So close, back and forth with the hits, advances and runs.
We wanted a win and so did they.
The pressure was thick, we needed a hit to move forward. It was the boys turn at bat. He is chubby, his stiffness makes him awkward, yet you can see something child like and tender.
His label protects and discriminates all at the same time making it impossible at any given moment to know if the boy will bat or if his label will bat. His eyes and attention are on the coach, who stands just off the first base line hoping to avoid a trip into the margin where distraction can cause the pressure cooker to explode. The label seems to find success in the margins leaving everyone, including his father, the coach and the cheerleaders on the sideline feeling more like Jonah trying to find his way out of the fish that once only flopped on the deck of our stomachs.
The coach repeats again and again, look at me, look at me until his focus is clear and the goal in sight. He would swing and miss, with no filter, telling the pitcher loudly just what he thought. Blue, the Ump, was at a loss for words now saying something about the inappropriate confrontation when suddenly the boy yelled back silencing Blue who is now off his game.
The pitch.
BAM!
He connected, it was out of there, he was running.
The tears poured out from behind my sunglasses. The whale spit us all free and we leaped to our feet, cheering for the boy. An error was made at first and off he went to second. Awkwardly running, pushing past all the things the label defined his life to be.
Suddenly, like reaching in a pocket only to find a surprise, he was just a boy. The boy who saved the game, renewing our hope in the underdog, suddenly he was every one's boy.
We are fearful at best.
I am sure it isn't of what he is, but what we are not.
There are lessons to be learned from the boy, his label and the game. He tries harder, he yells when he can't take it anymore, says what he thinks no matter what, he wants to be a part of the team, he cries easily, he will charge the mound with anger, he deeply cares if he plays well.
A beautiful thing happened because of the boy with the label.
