In the backyard...

I wrote this in June of last summer. It was the start of something bigger that never got bigger. Perhaps it's the constant Wisconsin snowfall that makes me wax nostalgic for baseball, back porches, and fastballs, but I thought I'd post.

Our yard is a forty-five minute yard. Since the summers of my high school years when I spent hours—if not days—behind the mower, I’ve calculated yard size in terms of minutes it takes to cut rather than acreage. Each afternoon and evening, however, the forty-five minute yard transforms into a major league ballpark, complete with bases (flimsy rubber Franklin squares), a PA system (outdoor speakers pumping the Sandlot soundtrack), a monstrous centerfield wall (the swing set), a dugout (the porch steps), a backstop (the bushes and shrubs fronting the porch) and luxury seats behind the plate (the back porch). The participants are usually Dodgers, sometimes Pirates (Caleb and Owen) and the pitcher is a former Cy Young Award Winner (me…okay, the 1989 Latrobe Little League Pitcher’s Award Winner.) Mama, in typical fashion, serves several roles: sometimes a vendor peddling wares from Freeze-Pops to Chex Mix and Apple Juice, sometimes a left-fielder, sometimes an umpire, always a fan.

Some ground rules and memories:
1. If a pitch is outside and Caleb swings and misses, it can still—and usually is—a ball.
2. I have several pitches: slow ball, heater, and super-fast heater.
3. Caleb always knows the count, the number of outs, and the score. It is not uncommon for me to be down 20-0 at the end of the first.
4. “Low and outside, just like I like it,” said by the famous Hamilton Porter, has been quoted hundreds of times on Schall Field (ordinary name—still awaiting corporate sponsorship) this summer.
5. Occasionally, Caleb plays the field against Owen. And despite being tagged multiple times by his turncoat brother, Owen will continue to run.
6. Caleb tells Owen to stop at each base, presumably to pad his RBI total. Last week, Caleb’s base running instructions to his wayward teammates was, “Stop at second, Owen. Listen to me, please!” Owen prefers triples and finds few things funnier than being chased with the ball.
7. Eye black is used regularly by the Dodgers, er, Caleb and Owen.
8. Weak ground balls back to the pitcher are often inexplicably ruled foul balls.

This Week's Top Plays
6/24: I blew two fastballs (read: underhand tosses, or slow balls) past Owen today. After coming up empty, Owen looked at me and said, “I love you, Daddy.” Batters rarely show this much affection for the pitcher, with the exception of opposing batters’ joy of seeing Ian Snell and his feckless fastball.

6/22: Monday night’s game came to a sudden but temporary halt when poop was discovered near first base. Caleb reported “cat poop” on the field after legging out an infield single. Upon inspection, I would have guessed a deer or thirty-seven cats defecated near the first base line. Caleb insisted the game must go on without the pesky delay of clean-up. When I told Caleb to get away from there, he incredulously said, “But that’s where first base is!” I never quite seem to see the big picture.