year brought with it a faint glimmer of hope. Dad drove me to Newberry’s Sporting Goods in Portsmouth, Ohio, to let me pick out a new glove. With my added height, Dad thought I might make a good first or second baseman. He had worked with me a lot in the backyard, and I was getting pretty good at catching the ball. He even bought me one of those elastic pitch-and-catch nets so that I could practice.
Dad had talked with my new coach, Mr. Whittaker, who was in charge of the team I had been selected to play on for the 1973 season — the Tigers. My beautiful new glove was purchased. It was a Wilson’s first baseman’s glove. And at the first practice of the season, with Dad’s influence — and after proving I could catch the ball — I was the Tiger’s new first baseman.
First base was a busy little place. Turning around to watch planes take off could mean getting beaned on the head. I learned to watch the batter — and the ball. And with Dad’s help in the backyard, I became a good first baseman, rarely missing a throw my way. But the struggles at bat remained and would never go away. And even though first base was a proper niche for me, I still dreaded every game and prayed for rain. God listened to me only one time. On game days, I can remember lying on the couch, hoping I could go to sleep and my parents would forget to wake me up for a game. But they never forgot. From the moment I woke up, I dreaded those games. I watched the clock in horror as the hour hand crept ever closer to the hour of doom. But I managed, and eventually the season was nearing its close.
At the end of the 1973 season, the league had planned a father/son wheelbarrow baseball game. The rules of the game were the same, except that the son would hit the ball, jump in the wheelbarrow, and be pushed around the bases by his father.
Before the game, a beautiful ten-speed bike was given away in a drawing. How many times one’s name got put in the box depended upon how many candy bars one sold during the season. Some kid on one of the other teams was sure he was going to win because his parents had personally bought over a hundred dollars in chocolate bars just for the sake of skewing the drawing. I held my breath as the winner’s name was announced. It wasn’t mine. But ironically, it wasn’t the name of the kid whose parents had bought the ton of sweets either. The winner was a kid who had, in fact, sold very few chocolate bars. However, the other child’s parents didn’t go away empty handed, for they had added ten pounds of girth to their waist lines!
Now, I can testify to the fact that it was difficult to defend first base with a burly father carting a son-filled wheelbarrow toward me. But this game was meant to be for laughs, not for the usual screaming parents yelling obscene remarks at the officials for conspiring against their sons. No, this game was for fun. But it wasn’t much fun for one father named Harold and his son, Kevin.
After Kevin had come to the plate and hit the ball, he promptly jumped into the wheelbarrow as his father began the mad dash toward me. “Safe!” yelled the umpire. There was no doubt about it; he was safe. I wasn’t standing in the way of that thing, for I had enough common sense not to. After the next hit, another son-filled wheelbarrow came my way. And Harold and Kevin were safe on second, followed by another hit that placed them on third. With home plate looming ahead of them, red-headed Harold dug his heels into the tread-marked scarred earth in preparation for his fatherly duties of becoming a hero. The crack of the bat could be heard all the way to the distant airport restaurant. The wheelbarrow blasted off, and all I could see was a red streak caroming to home plate as Harold’s crimson beard flopped in the breeze. “Safe!” Harold was stoked. That beard was madly oscillating up and down as Harold tried to regulate his air supply.
Finally, it was our team’s turn at bat. Harold, who refused to wear the appropriate face gear, got the opportunity to play catcher as his son pitched. He cocked his head back and awaited the next victim of their star pitcher. But we Tigers had some pretty good batters, and it wasn’t long before one of them launched a ball toward the fence. The explosion of the crowd could be heard all the way to the neighboring town seven miles away. “Roll that boy!” came the cheers. And roll they did — around first, second, and third bases as a wild throw from center field ended in a tremendous smack into Harold’s ill-fitting glove.
The wheelbarrow was closing in on home plate, and Harold decided to become not just a hero, but an Olympian. Straddling the plate, his scraggly form blocked the incoming rolling mass. A wide-eyed boy rode helplessly as his brawny father refused to be intimidated by the flopping beard of the catcher. But Harold would not budge.
Kaboom! Harold got run over. And from his great Olympian nose came the outpouring of a crimson river that sent shivers down our spines. “Oohs” and “aahs” reverberated off the concession-stand roof while a herd of cattle in the neighboring field watched in utter horror.
The first to arrive on the scene was Harold’s wife. As she comforted her husband, he seemed like a rag doll helplessly flitting in the wind. But he accepted her comfort, and then he rode to the hospital. Fortunately, he suffered only a broken nose, and that episode officially marked the end of the 1973 baseball season.
I remained on the Tigers’ team for the 1974 season. And it seems only fitting that this final year of my baseball career should end as it had begun — with our team coming in first place. The prize that year consisted of a shiny little trophy awarded at a cookout hosted by our team’s new coach, Mr. Evans.
Besides our team victory, three memorable things happened that final season. First, I got a double. It was a fluke, in a way. The pitcher released the ball, and my uncontrolled swing somehow connected. The ball was catapulted in an elegant arc that landed between the right and center fielders. Then, it rolled almost to the fence. I can still feel that solid sting of the ash bat rippling down my arms. I now knew what it was supposed to feel like to get a hit.
The second event was even more remarkable. It was the final game of the season. I hit a dainty little hit that barely made it to the pitcher’s mound. As I unenthusiastically made my way to first base expecting to get out, the ball flew out of the pitcher’s hand with such force that it landed near the parents sitting on the sideline. I was now heading toward second base. Again, the ball was thrown too high, allowing me to find third base. “Run,Tim! Run! Run!” I ran — all the way to home plate with a baseball closing in behind me. I didn’t know how to slide, so I just trotted across the plate and found my seat on the old wooden bench. I had gotten my first and only home run.
The third event happened in that same game. While I was guarding first base, a high fly ball was coming between the second baseman and myself. I decided to catch it. The second baseman had the same plan. We collided in the middle, and I got a fat lip as a souvenir. I turned and, without hesitation, walked off the field to sit down between Mom and Dad.
I was finished with baseball.
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg is a wife, mother, writer, and artist who was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of 50. After receiving her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from the University of California at Berkeley, she spent many years as a technical writer and homeschooling mother, and now lives a quiet life in rural Vermont.
The Blessings of Being a Tomboy
Tomboy. Remember that word?
These days, it has all but disappeared from the English language. My husband tells me that in the 1980s, people sometimes called his daughter a tomboy because she excelled at athletics. He and his late wife always corrected them with a variation of the following statement: “Our daughter is not a tomboy. She is a strong girl.”
While
