More Than Just a Game

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: My mom taught me how to play baseball. She taught me how to throw. How to hit. How to catch.

When I was a teenager she made fun of my batting stance. She said I shook my butt too much.

My mom loved to watch me run. She loved to watch me steal bases and chase down fly balls. She said I was the fastest kid in the world. On some days I was.

But as much as my mom taught me about how to play the game, it was my dad who taught me to love the game. To respect it because it was more than just a game.

He learned to love this game from his dad. My papa learned from his. It’s one of those cycles in our family that’s almost genetic.

My dad’s a New York Yankees fan. He has an entire bedroom in his house devoted to them. There’s a Yankees toothbrush that accompanies him when he travels. A license plate that sets his car apart from every other car in Tulsa. He’s a fanatic when it comes to Yankees baseball. I am not.

On paper, the Texas Rangers are my team. I do not have a toothbrush to denote this when I travel.

When my dad lived in Detroit back in the late Eighties and early Nineties, I would spend two months of the summer with him. On average we’d attend ten to fifteen baseball games a year. One summer he gave me the option of driving to Cleveland, Cincinnati, or Chicago to catch a baseball game over the extended 4^th of July weekend. I asked if we could just stay in Detroit. The Rangers were coming to town for a four game road series with the Tigers. We went to all four.

Now, when I say “on paper” I mean that the Rangers may be who I root for, bleed for, and cry for, but they don’t have my heart. Instead they only get a piece of it because I’ve learned that in thirty-five years of baseball I can’t give my heart to just one team. It belongs to the game itself.

Baseball’s always imperfect, except for those rare occasions when it actually is. It’s a game that boys play with the hopes of one day playing as men, and a game that men who wish they were still boys play because fully growing up is something they want no part of.

This past weekend I was in New York City with my dad. He had just turned sixty the weekend before, and to celebrate we took a quick trip to Gotham, and more specifically, to Yankees Stadium for three games.  My dad was finally going to be able to see his favorite team in its own house. More importantly, the fates had aligned to put us in a position to see his favorite player, Derek Jeter, become the first New York Yankee to ever reach the elusive milestone of 3,000 hits in a career.

Within minutes of settling into our hotel room Thursday night, I’d learned via ESPN that a fan had fallen from the stands during the Rangers home game earlier that night and died. At that time I didn’t know the whole story, but without being asked my memory confirmed that this was the third time a fan had fallen from the stands in Arlington.

Friday finally came, and because I wanted the people of New York City to know it was I and not them that was a fan of the greatest team in all of baseball I wore my red Michael Young t-shirt with the number ten in white on the back and a blue ball cap with a red ‘T’ stitched on the front. My attire gave everyone license to stop me and inquire of the previous night’s tragedy of which I had very limited knowledge of.

I responded the same way every time. “Yeah, I saw that on ESPN. It’s the third time since 1994 that someone’s fallen from the stands like that.”

This continued all day and into the early evening as we waited in the rain outside Yankee Stadium. I still knew none of the facts. It seemed the people I spoke with really didn’t either, but they wanted to talk about it right up until 5:30PM EST when those of us hiding under ponchos received word that the game was postponed and began heading back to where we came from. An hour later my life changed forever.

We took the subway from The Bronx back to our hotel in Manhattan. While changing out of my wet clothes, Scott Pelley informed me during the “CBS Evening News” exactly what had happened the night before. It was worse than I could have ever imagined.

He reported of how a man from Brownwood, Texas had driven several hours to take his six-year-old son to his first Texas Rangers game. Pelley talked of how this man wanted to share first hand with his son his own love for the greatest game on Earth. How the man had reached over the left field fence to catch a ball that Josh Hamilton had thrown into the stands for the man’s son. And how the man lost his balance and fell over the railing, landing on his head twenty feet below. Pelley said that the man could be heard pleading to anyone listening to take care of his son. The words were devastating, but the photos were heartbreaking. One photo showed the man reaching for the ball while another a strange woman holding his son, protecting the boy from seeing the horror below.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and fought with everything inside of me to hold back the tears. I didn’t want my dad to see how much this was affecting me, especially on his special weekend. It was a battle I couldn’t win.

On the subway back to The Bronx the next day I found myself thinking about this little boy that I’d never meet. I wondered if he’d ever go to another baseball game again. I wondered if he’d grow up and blame the game I loved so much for taking his father from him. I thought of all the games my own dad and I had attended together, and the baseballs we’d collected in that time. I thought of how many games I’d taken Kacie to. How I’d yet to take Brady because I wanted to wait for him to actually understand the game, to remember it, unlike Kacie who was less than three months old when she attended her first.

I couldn’t help but to feel guilty for getting to experience something so incredible with my dad. Moments of joy were overtaken at times by moments of extreme sadness. I found myself wishing I could give up my shot at witnessing baseball history with my dad if it meant bringing back this little boy his. Baseball was now more than just a game.

During the course of the weekend we reveled in watching Derek Jeter become an elite part of baseball history on Saturday and cheered as CC Sabathia threw a shutout on Sunday, yet all the while I kept finding myself re-living an entire lifetime of baseball. I remembered my mom hitting me in the face with a baseball when I was five and telling me that if I’d kept my glove up it wouldn’t have happened. I remembered my dad telling me of how he’d snuck into the 1985 World Series and watched the Kansas City Royals claim their only title in franchise history. I remembered shopping in 1998 for just the right baseball glove to buy for my first child, not knowing if it’d be a boy or a girl. I remembered how Traci’s mom used to tell me that if I wasn’t careful I’d force baseball on my kids to the point that they’d grow up to not even like the game. I’d defended myself by saying that I didn’t care if they never played on a team or watched the game, but that all I would ever want from them was that they would humor their old man every now and then and play a game of catch in the back yard.

Even as I write this, I find myself hoping that Cooper Stone’s mom is in some ways like my mom. I hope that as she starts the process of merging the life she once knew with the reality she’s now forced to live that she will continue to teach her son how to play baseball. That she teaches him how to throw. How to hit. How to catch. Maybe even how to shake his butt a little too much when he’s batting.

But more than anything, I hope that this little boy who will forever have a place in many of our hearts will one day learn to see past the unimaginable pain he may feel when looking onto a baseball field and love the greatest game on Earth as much as his dad must have.

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Fodder of the Year

Father’s Day was very uneventful, which is exactly the way I like it.

I have a hard time celebrating holidays that to me hold little or no sentimental value. Translation for all of you cynics out there: Yes, I’m tired of getting busted for not putting thought into “holidays” that roll around each year at the same time only to become a repeat offender (great album by Richard Marx) in the crappy husband category because the kids and I haven’t done jack squat for Traci until the day of. There. I said it. Happy?

But how about a honest show of hands: Who really wants to wait in line for over an hour at Outback Steakhouse on the day they open five hours early so that everyone can celebrate Mum? Not me.

Adversely, I don’t want to suffer outside in a hundred degree heat while waiting to celebrate my alleged greatness over a Bloomin’ Onion either. All I really want is some extra time with my kids, the couch, and the Playstation and we can call it good. And a slice of chocolate chip cookie with icing on it from Great American Cookie wouldn’t hurt either.

So yes, my Father’s Day was what some might deem boring. Dull. Lackluster. Nothing special to the casual onlooker.

I call my dad. Brady asks to talk. I wait through seven or eight rings and hand Brady the phone when I finally hear my dad’s voice.

“Happy Fodder’s Day, Papaw.”

I should note that while I’ve made this grand declaration about not wanting a big deal made of the day, Brady has just told his Papaw something he hasn’t even told me yet, and it’s already one in the afternoon.

“Um, we’re going to the grocery store. And to get somefing for my daddy that I can’t talk about.”

A cookie. I hope it’s a nice big cookie with an excess of chocolate icing. And milk – we’re almost out.

“I also swam in my nana and my papa’s pool yesterday wiffout my fwoaties. Okay, well, love you. Bye, Papaw.” He hands the phone back to me and jumps off the couch.

While translating for my dad, I hear the front door lock behind my family as they embark on their clandestine mission. Dad and I spend the next twenty minutes or so catching up and talking baseball before saying goodbye to spend our respective Fathers’ Days relaxing on our respective couches.

Somewhere between the fourth and sixth innings of my second PS3 baseball game, the troops return, weighed down by a rainbow assortment of blue, red, and green reusable grocery bags, two Sunday papers complete with coupons for a story I’ll share with you at a later date, and freshly made cookies from the greatest sliced cookie store ever.

“We brought you sumpfing,” Brady taunts as he stands in front of me, blocking the television as I try unsuccessfully to hit a wicked curve ball that bounces a couple of feet in front of home plate.

I push him to the side, just in time to strike out. I don’t acknowledge the shopping sack full of sliced cookies. The kid shouldn’t think I’m that easy, which for the record I am.

“Are you out or in?” he inquires of my player’s status. At four he’s still learning the finer points of baseball while simultaneously finding a way to put his own spin on it.

“Out.” No thanks to you.

“What team are you?”

“The Texas Rangers.”

“Again? You should be the Pigeons.”

I give him a confused, yet curious look as to why he’d suggest I should be a professional baseball team called The Pigeons. Before I can ask, something in the kitchen distracts him and he steps out of my line of sight to investigate. It’s then I see my opponent’s mascot on the TV screen. A brown and orange bird.

 “They’re not pigeons, Brady. They’re Orioles,” Kacie says, in her best know-it-all big sister voice.

“From Baltimore,” I finish.

We share a glance. I’m satisfied in knowing that my love of baseball has effortlessly passed itself on to her. She’s good to go with the knowledge that for now she’s still smarter than her little brother.

“Oh. Well you should make a team and call it the Pigeons. That would be cool.” He retreats to the kitchen with the bag full of cookies.

The banter between the three of us is nothing out of the norm for a Sunday afternoon – or any day for that matter - and serves as a reminder that I don’t need one day out of 365 for my kids to show me that they love me.

My little contributions to society have been brainwashed to love me every day (a little less when I’m grounding them), not because I’m Daddy, and certainly not because they think it’s funny that I put up such a fight in resisting their advances in renaming me “Dad” but instead because I truly am that awesome. But mostly, they love me on days like Father’s Day because buying me a cookie slice means that by default they too get cookie slices.

How’s that for Fodder of the Year? And I didn’t even have to leave the living room.

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My Kids Are Smarter (Mouthed) Than Yours

My kids are like robots. They’re smarter, faster, and more functional than I am.

I suppose I can only blame myself for making such awesome offspring. Sure my wife helped, but only in areas where it really matters - like kindness, empathy, and unselfishness. All of the other useless attributes they get from me. Like wit. Sense of humor. And killer good looks.

As I watch my little rascals go about their day-to-day lives, it’s become increasingly apparent that their smart mouths are going to land one (probably both) of them in the clink. Jury’s still out if it’ll be a normal jail in the states for sassing off to a cop during a routine traffic stop or a prison in some third world country while participating in Doctors Without Borders. I should probably teach them how to play dominos just in case.

There’s really not a day that goes by where one of my children doesn’t impress me somehow, not because of their grades or charity or willingness to cuddle with Daddy despite having better things to do, but because of just how much they are like their old man. The quick witted things that come out of their mouths makes me all teary eyed and proud to be a parent. A mentor.

It’s like the wheels are always in motion with these two, as if they’re just waiting for Traci or myself to slip up and leave the door wide open for them to respond with some off-the-cuff remark. So when the wheels do come off it shouldn’t really come as a surprise, yet it always does.

Because of this, I’ve come up with a list of five outlandish things each of them has said in recent weeks that only substantiates my point and furthers the fact that I have the smartest (mouthed) kids in the world. I’ve held nothing back. For you to know me, you have to know them. Not some cutesy painted image of them wearing pastels on a lazy spring day, but the real them. The unplugged them. The them I have to put up with on a daily basis.

Here you go. Don’t be jealous.

1)      Brady: Daddy, step on that ant and squish it. Then it will be dead. Like my mommy’s grandma.

2)      Kacie: One day I’m going to move away to college. Then get married. Okay, maybe not married, but I’m still going away to college. Which means I won’t be here every day when you get home from work. Try not to cry. Especially right now, Dad. Sheesh.

3)      Brady: I can’t wait to watch that Yogi the Bear movie! I love him. And Owie.

Traci: Owie?

Brady: Yogi the Bear’s friend.

Me: You mean Boo Boo?

Brady: That’s what I said. Owie.

4)      Kacie: Can we not talk about penises?

Me: Your brother started it. Not me.

Kacie: He’s four. You haven’t been four in a long time. Like decades.

Me: If he wants to ask me about his penis then we’ll talk about his penis.

Kacie: Dad! Please! I don’t want to hear, talk, or think about penises.

Me: Remember that. Until you graduate college. Then maybe not until you’ve secured a good job for yourself. But at least graduate college first. Then you can think about penises all you want.

Kacie: If you mention that word again I’m going to talk about Justin Bieber until you beg me to stop.

5)      Brady: Daddy, you and my mommy have to make a baby.

Me: No, no we don’t.

Brady: Yes. You have to. You can create one.

Me: And how are we going to create one?

Brady: I have paper and Crayons. You can use them.

It’s hard to do anything that resembles actual parenting when your children are always spouting off crap like this, especially when they’re saying it while you’re trying to dole out punishments. I mean, how is one supposed to be taken seriously as a parent when the phrase “Go to your room!” can’t even be uttered with a straight face? I smile. They smile. I laugh. They laugh. I send them across the room to their mother so that she can succeed where I failed. It’s a vicious cycle that only perpetuates the notion that sometimes my parenting skills are downright anemic.

It’s all good in the Parent Hood though. Their daily shtick means that I get to write down anything I want regarding their antics and then share said antics with the world. If it embarrasses them then maybe it’ll teach them to be nicer to Daddy and occasionally allow (or at least pretend to allow) me to have the upper hand in all of this. Fair trade if you ask me.

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My Life Has Come to This

I’ve been informed that today is National Bike to Work Day.

As many of you know, I wrote in March about how I was thinking of riding a bike to and from work several days a week in an attempt to save money at the pump and get fit. Can I just say that the very notion of my riding a bike to work might have been the singled dopiest idea I’d ever come up with in thirty-five years of dreaming up stupid ideas?

I arrived at this conclusion one afternoon while sitting at a stoplight on the way home from work. As I waited for the stoplight to favor me, I saw a man and woman riding unicycles across the intersection of Proposed Bike Route #4.  Yes, I said unicycles.  You know…the bikes that don’t have handlebars or a second wheel? Stupid, I know.

Both people were struggling to cross before the light turned against them. I found myself hoping they’d fail, that traffic would bear down on them quickly, forcing the couple to jump ship just in time to watch their stupidcycles get crushed beneath a semi. Harsh? Yes, but these characters were invading my bike route – the route that I’d spent weeks researching and travelling and timing and adjusting and travelling all over again. Proposed Bike Route #4 was not theirs.

No such luck.

Upon my arrival home that day, I decided to give the bike another shot. It didn’t reciprocate. The bike hates my guts. So I humbly come to you to say that there will be no riding one to work any day, let alone on a day when the rest of the nation has decided to make a mockery out of me.

Instead I’m compelled to tell you that my life has come to this: Walking on the treadmill with cellophane wrapped around my belly after an intense P90X workout. Yes, I feel like Sunday’s leftover pork roast when I hit the gym, but it was either this or Skinnygirl Margaritas. I went with the option I felt would dock me the least points on my steadily declining Man Card. The jury is still out.

*Please insert jokes in the comment section below. Ridicule from the usual members of the Peanut Gallery gladly accepted, but I’d like to hear from some of my newer readers. Winner will receive nothing but my utmost respect. And contempt.*

**Kacie, this does not apply to you as I am restricting your commenting privileges. Love, Daddy.**

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Teen of My Heart

My daughter has betrayed me. Again.

Today, without first asking for my permission, Kacie has entered the world of teenagerdom – or teenager dumb. Either or. And both, really.

This is where, for the next six years, she’s made the commitment to make my life hell. By enlisting in the not-so-clandestine organization T.E.E.N. she’s accepted a seven year mission to push limits to the extreme and force her mother and me to create new limits where there once were none.

I know nothing about raising a teenage girl. I was barely coping with being a parent in general, when I just had “kids.” It was okay before because I knew what it was like to be a kid – mainly because I still am one. I was finally getting it down. Coming into my own.

But this is different.

I don’t speak Period or Feminine Hygiene Product or ­­­Miniskirts & High Heels. I don’t know what it’s like to have your heart broken by some boy who’s decided just eighteen hours after the world’s longest makeout session at a party you didn’t even have permission to be at in the first place that he likes your best friend better than he does you.

I can’t ask my mom for advice. Yes, she raised five kids (three of which were girls), but she’d be zero help. Her only response would be: “Remember when I told you this day would come? Well, it’s here and I’m not even going to pretend to feel sorry for you.”

Surely there’s a support group out there to help walk me through this. Like a Craigslist for dads. Maybe Dadslist? Mydaughterbrokemyheart.com? Suckstobeme.org?

When I looked at her this morning it was like a stranger was staring back at me, smiling, waiting for me to make the first move even though she’d already made it. All I could do was kiss her on the head and tell her to have a good day and then quickly bail before the floodgates opened and my mascara started to smear.

But at some point in the next few hours I have to go home and face her. No matter how hard I may try to pretend today like nothing’s changed, everything’s changed. I’ll learn to be okay with it. Eventually. Just not today.

Kacie – I love you. You’re more than anything I could have hoped for and better than anything I’ll ever deserve. But you’re grounded.

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Taking Back Television

This is where, if I were a real man, I’d say that my wife is right. But I’m not and to be quite honest am perfectly okay with that.

She’s been pestering me to get rid of some (all) of the TVs in our possession, or at the very least dumb down our cable subscription. I’ve said it before -- that’s just a horrible idea on so many levels. But as farfetched as her drastic measures come off, I’m thinking there’s a solution somewhere within the madness that could work if it means my regaining control of the remote.

My recent epiphany stems from two separate instances yesterday that made me realize I watch, or at least hear, too many children’s television shows on a daily basis. These shows all have catchy tunes that get stuck in your head like a bad song from the 90’s. And because the shows and even the commercials are played on what seems like a continuous loop, it’s easy to find yourself repeating lines of dialogue (or shouting them when Swiper is swiping) in unison with your kid without even realizing you’re doing it.

I submit for the defense:

Instance One

A friend and I are at work discussing possible lunch options. He’s been begging me to go out to eat with him. By begging, I mean giving me a hard time because of the diet I’ve been on for the last three weeks and my decision to punt foods that helped put me in my current dietary predicament. It’s become part of our daily shtick.

He suggests burgers. Ice cream. Tasty chicken tenders, fries, and sweet tea from Raising Cane’s (which I would absolutely love to say yes to but am putting off for a few more weeks). Burritos de Freebirds. I say no to all. He rolls his eyes, displeased in my new lifestyle choices and how they now affect him.

He turns back to his computer and pouts. And by pouts, I mean drops the subject and gets back to work because he really had no intention of going out for lunch anyways because he’d brought his. I decide to turn the table and get his hopes up for an hour-long jailbreak from the office.

Me: What about Ming-Ming.

David: Huh?

Me: For lunch.

David: Ming-Ming?

Me: The Asian restaurant by Target??

David: (confused) You mean NewNew???

Me: Oh, right. Ming Ming is the duck on Wonder Pets…

Instance Two

Last night I’m taking my final Short Fiction test of the semester. For the life of me I cannot remember several answers to what should be some pretty easy questions. My mind was beyond blank.

There was one question in particular that asked about David Barthelme’s short story “The School” and what kind of animal walked into the classroom at the end which caused the kids to go crazy. Sounds simple enough, right? Nope. All I could come up with was a dinosaur. Why a dinosaur, you ask? I was picturing the story as it played out in my head, which turns out really wasn’t the story by David Barthelme at all but instead an episode of Dino Dan.

The culprit is Nick Jr., which is always on at our house. And while it’s a pretty good influence on my kid as far as television is concerned, I’d really like Brady to watch a little more in the way of classic cartoons and a little less pre-school entertainment while I’m around. I mean, a 35-year-old man singing the theme song for Scooby Doo out in public is a little less creepy than one singing “We had a great day. It was a super way, to spend some time together” from the Fresh Beat Band.

Something has to be done while I still have a tiny bit of dignity left.

My proposal? Not to take television away from the kids but to take it back period. Ground Brady from television just long enough that he moves on to kid shows that are more age appropriate for me to openly enjoy and publicly reference. Make him read instead. Sure, he’s only four but there’s no reason to think he can’t teach himself how to read. I mean, the boy already knows ‘hat’ and ‘cat’ and ‘dog.’ This way, should he be able to pick up on a word like ‘superfluous’ somewhere between Dr. Seuss and Ernest Hemingway, making me look like a genius.

You’re welcome, dear.

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Brace For It

Today I have taken the plunge deeper into debt, and in doing so, have totally fooked myself when it comes time for Kacie to start dating.

You see, she’s getting braces. Right now, actually.

Braces are something Kacie’s wanted for a while. I tell my daughter, like most fathers tell their own daughters, that I think she’s gorgeous. She says that’s not why she wants braces. Instead she says that she just wants to have better teeth, a better smile. I can buy that, I suppose.

For me though, it’s Kacie’s eyes that have always had a way of doing the smiling for her, if that makes sense. It’s something I’ve loved about her from Day One – the way the corners of her eyes crinkle just a tiny bit and her blue eyes seem to become even bluer when she’s happy. But now, because we’ve succumbed to doing right by her teeth, Traci and I are arming our firstborn with a toothy smile that’s going to make her even more beautiful than she already is. I may as well start saving now for the wedding. Sorry, Milky Way. I can no longer afford to entertain you or your other friends from the candy barrio.

Last night I asked Kacie if she was nervous. She wasn’t.

I asked if she thought it’d hurt. She wasn’t worried about that either – she just wanted to finally be able to punt the spacer she’d been using the last two weeks. She said that’s what hurt.

I asked if she was afraid of getting teased. I called her “metal mouth” and “brace face” and something else that I can’t think of offhand. I wanted to test her, to see if she was ready for the possible ridicule that could come with such a commitment.

“Is that all you’ve got, Dad?” She wasn’t fazed. “You’re a writer. I thought you’d be better at this.”

“It’s ‘Daddy,’ just so you know.”

“Dad,” she said with a soft, emphatic tone.

She smiled. My heart tried to give in.

“Um, no. Try again.”

“Fine. And no, I’m not afraid.”

“Okay, I’m glad. Now go finish your homework. But it’s ‘Daddy.’ Got it?”

“Got it,” she said, disappearing into the hallway. “Dad…”

Why wasn’t Kacie nervous or worried or afraid like I was? How, at twelve, could she be so confident about herself and the decision she’d made to get them? Why can’t I be as confident at times as she is?

And who gave her permission to stop calling me “Daddy?” Not me, of course. Was this some evil plot orchestrated by my wife because the kids stopped calling her “Mommy” some time ago? Sorry. I know. Focus.

So now I’m waiting, anxiously, for someone to call or email or text or something and say that everything’s okay…that despite having several months’ salary wired into her mouth now, my little girl is good to go – no different from when I saw her just a few hours ago when I poked my head in her bedroom and blew her a kiss goodbye before leaving for work.

More important than her well-being, I need Kacie to hurry up while she’s still groggy and sign the agreement I had drafted this morning that specifically forbids her from falling in love and leaving me one day because some dopey kid thinks she has a beautiful smile and can’t live without her. It’s going to happen. Just ask my father-in-law.

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