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The distance from home plate to the fence in left field was exactly 200 feet, but the ball must have cleared the fence by another hundred. It took so long for the ball to come down, that by the time the black blotches from the sun had cleared from my vision, my father was already rounding third and heading home. His trot was free and easy, and he winked at me as he passed me and returned to the dugout.
I was twelve that day. It was my first all-star team, one that I had been struggling to make for over half of my short life. I had made several soccer all-star teams, but my father was the soccer coach, so I never knew if those selections were merit-based, or name based. But this team, this team was all mine. I was the best catcher in the league in 1988, at Sid Lickton Park, and I now wore the all-star uniform to prove it.
Twelve was a hard year in my house. Not so much because I was twelve, although anyone with a seventh grader knows how hard of a year that can be, but because raising three teenagers is a daunting task for anyone. I am the youngest of three children, and when I was twelve, I had two sisters, fourteen and sixteen.
My father’s second at-bat was no less spectacular. He swung at the first offering, and drove it skyward, its arc tracing a long-forgotten rainbow into the grass beyond the left field fence. A collective gasp could be heard from my teammates as they watched the baseball disappear and then reappear from the clouded sky. My father, enacting every ounce of his humility, circled the bases once again. As he passed me a second time, he reached his hand out to give me a high five. The act was not reciprocated. As magnificent as the home run was, I was in no place to congratulate my foe—it was a parents vs kids game, and my game face delivered my message.
At twelve, I was still trying to figure myself out. I was at the very early stages of puberty, watching as my friends as their bodies transitioned from “childhood to adulthood.” It was a time of figuring out who I was as a human, which direction I wanted my life to take, who I thought I wanted to be. I played trumpet in the school band to please my best friend. I sang in the church choir to please my mother. I played soccer and baseball to please my father. I enjoyed all of these things immensely, but what did I want? I wasn’t sure. Today, watching my twelve-year-old struggle to find himself in this world, I think back to all of those moments spent trying to sort out who I was.
When my father strode to the plate for his third and final at-bat, the managers and coaches of our team, those who were in control of the “friendly” father-son all-star game—the game played every year to finish off the regular season before the all-star tournaments began—decided, as a matter of fairness, my father would have to bat left-handed for his third and final at bat. He awkwardly fouled the first pitch straight back. His swing looked forced and mechanical, as if he were the tin man covered in years of rust and dirt, trying to figure out how to move again. His second swing, however, looked nothing like the first.
There are a few sounds in this world that are unmistakable: the sound of a soda can opening, the sound of a baby crying, the sound of hard Florida summer rain on a screen porch roof, and the sound of a bat meeting a baseball. The ball left his bat and traveled so swiftly, I lost it in the sun. It arced high as it passed the fence, traveled over the area between the fields, and came to rest on the opposite side of the concession stands some four hundred feet from home plate.
Once, as a youth, Howard Johnson, the switch-hitting all-star third baseman for the NY Mets, hit a home run on this same field. It was to straightaway center, and off of the water tower. It was the most talked about moment in the history of Sid Lickton Park, and he was the most famous switch hitter ever to play on that field. In that moment, in my mind, my father was Howard Johnson.
As my father rounded third and headed home, I no longer felt the need to pretend that I was mad, no need to pretend that I wanted to win the game, no longer needed to pretend. I hugged him deeply as he reached home plate.
This was the first time I remember being proud of my father. I am sure that there were other moments, long before this one, where I felt a sense of pride, but this is the moment in my life where everything came into focus. I wasn’t proud of him for hitting a home run—or three; lots of below average fathers can do that. I was proud of him for a different reason, one that I couldn’t explain.
Looking back as an adult, and a father, I realize that was the moment where I understood how important he was to me, and I to him. Everything he did as a coach, as a father, as a man, as a human, was for his family. This was my moment of transition to “manhood,” when I first was able to comprehend that his decisions were not only about him. If I were to be half the father he was, I would need to make decisions based on the good of those I love, on what would not only serve me best, but would serve my family, my community, humanity.
As a father, I want my children to be proud of me. I want to be the role model for them that my father was for me. I spend each day working to make their world a better place to live. I want them to embrace me as I round third base and head home.
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Photo credit: Flickr/AndersKnudsen