Baseball

I come from a long line of baseball fans and players. On my mother’s side of the family her father (my grandfather) and all her uncles played in high school. Which nobody finished. They all would have liked to I’m sure, but in the rural South in those days boys had to go to work as soon as they were old enough. To support the family, get the crops in, pull their weight. 

Still, her oldest uncle, Jim, played semi-pro ball, as it was called then, and was known for throwing a wicked curveball. A crooked ball is what my grandfather always called it. And Buster, the youngest, had the swing of DiMaggio, and lost many a ball in the river beyond the left field fence. Jim played ball and worked the farm right up to the Second World War, when he was conscripted, sent to the Pacific theater, and died on Okinawa. Buster, twenty one and newly married, volunteered, and was killed by German machine gun fire three days in from Omaha Beach.

My dad was a pretty good player, pitched in college, and was known for his knuckleball, a pitch I came to know up close and personal when one jumped over my outstretched glove and busted me square in the mouth. I was probably eleven at the time, had been playing little league for three or four years, and remember my father laughing as I bled all over the driveway. We laughed about that one for years, him more than me.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I went to live with my grandfather for the summer. To help take care of him, and to keep me out of trouble. My grandmother had unexpectedly passed away the year before, and he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and was beginning to go downhill.

Me in my youthful naivete and he in his optimistic denial, didn’t realize it would be our last summer together. 

My grandfather, Pop, and I had always been Atlanta Braves fans.  In those days not every game was televised, and the ones that weren’t we listened to on the radio. During the summer that was the highlight of our days together. Pop would give me the money and I’d drive up to the store and buy a six pack of tall Pabst Blue Ribbon beers. I would cook us some dinner and then, to the background noise of chirping crickets and tree frogs, we would drink those tall boys and listen to the game. Sitting on the front porch, looking out over the flat front yard where he had drilled me for hours fielding baseballs when I was younger. 

It’s the height of the season now, and the Braves are eleven games up on the Phillies in the NL East. I’m all by myself, cooking dinner, listening to the game on the radio, streaming over wifi. The sun is going down over the mountains, spreading into purple and gold. Were Pop here, he would be beside himself to know how well we’re doing mid August.  

But I’m essentially an optimist, and believe he does know, where he is. And that there are cold PBR’s in the fridge there, he’s rocking on the porch with his brothers, and the radio reception is good.