To the Ball Game

            by Noah Isaacs

 

I stood in silence, awaiting those two words. This was my year to prove myself to the rest of the league and show the world I could play in the bigs. The browning grass stood still in anticipation of the first pitch. Through good fortune and some luck I had made it to AAA. The league had never cut a player from AAA, and for that I was grateful. I saw it as a second chance, or maybe even a last. The dust falling from my hand told me the wind was blowing hard out to left, and I should do my best to keep the pitches low. My team grew restless; we were ready to play. All eyes were on the ump. “Play Ball!”

 

My first game didn’t go as well as I had planned, or as anyone had, except for maybe Satan. The homerun I had hoped for came off my opponent’s bat instead of mine. Any success I had fell short to the memories my dad had recanted of when he was a kid playing stick ball in the streets. My dad was always the best player in the league, and owned all the pitchers, keeping them in check with a bat in his hand and a smile on his face. It didn’t matter where you threw the ball; my dad was going to hit it. His only flaw was that he was left handed, god’s greatest curse. I, on the other hand never really hit the ball; I attribute my rare contact to the ball hitting my bat and not the other way around. Ty Cobb always said, “You’ll hit something if you swing enough times.” This saying or rather way of life led to many strikeouts over my seemingly endless season of judgment, but I kept swinging.

 

I loved baseball… I think. My reasons for playing remain blurry. It definitely wasn’t the work out. I ran as little as possible, savoring every minute I got to sit. I chose to play catcher, the position with the least amount of movement. It also didn’t hurt that catchers look by far the coolest with the sweet looking gear they get to wear. I got to pretend I was a red power ranger every time I ran, or rather walked, onto the field. I liked catching. It made me feel powerful. The whole field looked at me eye to eye, and it was up to me to tell people what to do. I think I played cause my friends played. I liked my teammates a lot, they laughed when I told jokes, at me or with me, and I didn’t really care. I liked making people smile, laugh, and occasionally drip Gatorade through their noses. I think I played because I liked winning. I loved winning. There was something about beating an opponent that just said, “ Hey I’m better than you… How you like me now?” Winning made up for my struggles. When we won, it was as a team. When we lost, fingers were pointed, mine with the teams, facing my chest. I played because I knew baseball was supposed to be fun. I liked fun. Or maybe I played because it was just in my genes. I doubt it was my dad’s countless trophies that inspired me to put eight hours a week into a sport I could barely play, but I played.

 

 I remember visiting the house he grew up in, on Fairfax. My dad lived in Los Angeles, which of course just means south of Santa Barbara. The stain glass light fixture lit the walls with reds, blues, and yellows. The light reflected perfectly off my dad’s bronzed basketball players forever frozen in time. Digging through his closet I found two old catcher gloves, glazed by time. They looked like the ones that I had seen Yogi Berra playing with in a picture in a sports bar. It was strange to see these gloves in color. 

My dad was a star athlete in the three sports he played through high school. He was a natural and everything came easily to him.  I have never really forgiven him for the lack of athleticism he passed on to me. He had a three-foot vertical leap; I had two feet made out of lead.

 “Noah, it’s not going to be easy to make it to the majors,” He told me.

“So what. It’s just baseball.”

“I’m not saying you won’t. I just want you to know that you might not. I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“Dad whatever happens, happens,” I said trying to look as indifferent as possible.

“Noah...”

“I’m fine,” I snapped, rubbing my eyes.

With every game came the pressures of success, which was a lot to ask from someone who was no good. Apparently I was the only player tolled by the pressure, everyone else on my team was having a career year. By the third game a couple of my teammates had already hit their fifth and sixth triples respectively. “Nice hit,” I would say, masking my anger with the best fake smile I could muster. My anger was not directed at their success, as much as it was directed at myself. 

I played for the Orioles, or as Algonquian legend maintains, “the bird of false hope”. We were in third place by the end of the first half, but the second half marked a new beginning. I had a clean slate, fresh and ready to be defaced.

 

Tournament of Champions

 

Our success in the second half bought us a ticket to the Tournament of Champions. The majestic title alone made even the worst players feel like champions. How could it not? It didn’t matter that I had collected a blistering 3 hits over the season. I was a champion. As far as I was concerned no one was better than I, we were all equals, champions in a tournament built for our peers. So what I kept my batting average in the mid fifties, we were equals… equals I say.

In the first game we slaughter-ruled the team (beating them by ten after the fourth inning.) The ball hit my bat for the game winning hit. I don’t know why I was surprised or even excited. I was a champion, that’s what we did, no biggy. My team and I brought this confidence into the next game of the tournament, immediately jumping on the scoreboard, scoring nine runs in the first inning. By the second inning the game was over. But in the third they cut our lead in half. The final score was eighteen to nineteen. I couldn’t believe what had happened. We had had the game in the bag, but it was how quickly we let that bag slip that blew my mind. I guess Yogi Berra said it best, “It aint over till it’s over.”

I drove home from concord that day both a loser and a champion.  My season was over, and the end of my baseball career looked all but certain.  What a way to end a career. I immediately decided I would play summer baseball, to make sure I played in the majors the next year, but those plans were forgotten just as quickly.

 

 

 

Tryouts (Next Season)

 

I was not ready to watch myself strike out from the sport I loved.  The morning of my tryouts I dressed with a sense of urgency. I made sure each sock was on straight, the stirrups out to the side. I wore short pants, borderline knickerbockers, as somewhat of a tribute to the players of old. My white shirt delicately tucked into my red belt, I put my hat on as best as I could, my brown hair struggling to free itself from its red captive. I laced up my cleats and made sure to double knot them; I couldn’t afford to have anything make me any worse than I already was. I threw on a jacket and left my house singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

“Noah Isaacs? Is there a Noah Isaacs here?” a coach yelled.

“Yea,” my voice quivered.

“Come on over.”

I stood up lightheaded, and walked to the infield dirt. The sun was beginning to break through the over cast sky. It was not yet warm, but that didn’t stop me from taking off my jacket. I stumbled over third base on my way to my starting position.

“You ready?” a coached asked.

The ball came whizzing off his bat before I had time to answer. One two three, four hops before the ball found my gloves. I opened my eyes and whipped the ball over to first base. Fielding had never been a problem for me; I’m not sure you could call it my strength, but it was definitely not one of my weaknesses. I errorlessly made my way around the diamond, forcing the scouts pens’ to move and eyes’ to stare. Catch with my dad paid off.

 

I played catch with my dad every weekend. Every weekend I could muster the energy to get my mentally obese self out of bed. We walked to the park at the corner. For some reason we never practiced hitting, only catching, fielding, and throwing. We would throw for hours, my dad showing me how to throw correctly, me telling my dad how to not throw like a girl. A girl with no arms that is, which my dad told me was still politically incorrect. I could just flick my wrist, and the ball would fly.

“Noah, why don’t you pitch?” my dad would ask. “That way you wouldn’t have to hit.”

“Thanks dad.”

“No seriously, if you put some work in you could be a really good pitcher. You got a lot of movement on the ball. I’m just saying your ball hurts to catch. You got some velocity.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said.

 

By the time it was my turn to bat the gray sea in the sky had parted, giving way to a beautiful day. I gripped the metal bat in my hand uncertain of what to do. It had been nearly a summer since I had taken a real cut. I took a couple practice swings, pretending to make contact with the ball. The pitcher toed the slab and kicked high. His arm flew in the air and dropped just as quickly. I bit my lip, squinted my eyes, and threw my bat at the ball. I whiffed. A player in the dugout thanked me for the kind breeze. I thanked him under my breath. The pitcher again toed the slab, but this time I threw my hand up and called for time. Recollected, I stepped back in the batters box, my head tilted a bit to the side as to avoid the sun on my face. The pitch came.

“Are you alright?” the pitcher asked, running off the mound.

“Yea,” I said, dusting my shirt off as I picked myself off the ground. 

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about,” I said, looking around the field.

“Are you sure?”

“Yea, I just want to hit,” I said, staying cool.

 But that was the last thing I wanted to do. I was thankful the last pitch had nearly missed my head, and severely missed the strike zone. I was pretty confident in my ability to keep my bat far from the ball. The next pitch came. This time my eyes grew big and my gaze grew strong. My hands tightened around the bat. I let the ball come to me, and flicked the bat. I made contact! I looked around for the foul ball, but all fingers were pointing to dead center.

“Way to go, Noey!” my dad yelled from the bleachers.

“Way to go,” I thought to myself. Now people will expect me to hit, I just got lucky.

The tryout results were posted on the wall of the Memorial Field snack shack. My eyes traversed the three-page list of names, finally resting on the I’s. There it was, Isaacs, Noah. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe there was another Noah Isaacs, but I didn’t care. I’d pretend to be him.

“Told you,” I said looking up at my dad.

“Told me what?”

“You said I wouldn’t make it,” I said with glee.

“I told you it wouldn’t be easy,” my dad said. “Everyone gets lucky at some point,” My dad joked.

“Thanks a lot dad,” I said sarcastically

I guess he was right. Everyone gets lucky at some point. My dad’s big arms pulled me in to a grizzly bear hug. 

“Thanks a lot, dad.”

“Don’t thank me. You did this yourself.”