Reversed

It's been almost 18 hours since Doug Mientkiewicz squeezed Keith Foulke's underhanded toss to clinch the World Series for the Red Sox. I've watched some Baseball Tonight and Sportscenter, read 10 or 12 ESPN articles about the game, and replayed moments from the last two weeks over and over in my head, but I still have no idea what to say about all this. I don't know who to be today.

The first thing I wanted to do when the game was sealed and the hugs had been thrown around Our House West was to call my dad. He's not a die-hard Sox fan for life who never thought he would live to see them win a title. In fact, he's rumored to have told my mom during last week's ALCS that "it's just a game. it doesn't matter." Sure, words like that border on inhuman during this year's ultimate battle between good and evil, but it wasn't my dad's attitude on the big leagues that made me think of him during last night's revelrly. It was his attitude on Little League.

Dad grew up on a farm. He got up at negative three every morning, did chores, ate breakfast, walked to and from a one-room schoolhouse uphill both ways, did more chores, and went to bed without supper if he was lucky enough to steal a bed from one of his 28 siblings. Baseball played no part in his young life, but he wouldn't let the same happen to me.

Dad had this glove (and I'm sure he still does) that was about as effective as an oven mitt and a rubber band. It was maybe two inches longer than his fingers, and about as thick as one patty of a Big Mac. I got a new glove every few years and my little sister had a couple of gloves, including a junior catcher's mitt, but Dad never wanted another glove for himself. He'd take Ol' Worthless out and play catch with me, never worrying much about hurting himself with a seven-year-old's feeble toss. He always worked late and only had so much daylight and three kids to share it with, but he made plenty of time to play catch with his only son, just like his dad never did with him.

At age nine, I learned how to pitch. It was in pitching where I could excel; where I was better than the other kids; where baseball started to mean something to me. Control was my craft at nine. The ability to throw the ball over the plate was to Little League what Jennifer Lopez's ass is to her music career. By eleven or twelve, control gave way to velocity.

I still threw with Dad in the front yard, only I was throwing a little harder. He could have stood up, but he always insisted on going into the catcher's crouch and giving me a target. By twelve, I was putting some heat into the ball, never relying on a pitch other than my fastball and still pitching from 46 feet away. I wasn't the hardest thrower in the league, but I certainly wouldn't have caught my own pitches with Ol' Worthless.

But Dad did. Dad would end the sessions when he thought it was getting too dark or it was time for dinner, but if I were him, I would have given up much earlier. I can still see the palm of his left hand, raw and red like an uncooked steak, but always ready to throw on Ol' Worthless when the sun rose again, because his son was a pitcher, and his son loved baseball.

Today, I love baseball more than I ever have in my life. I've devoted a near-sleepless month, and most of a season (not to mention the last eighteen or so), to watching grown men play a kids' game, yet I don't feel like I've wasted a second. Some of the most memorable and important moments of my life will revolve around a game, which, even though I never succeeded playing later in life, has become a large part of my identity. If not for my dad, I might have chosen chess.

Thanks, Dad.