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My son pulls a line drive through the gap just about every at-bat. Claims he does it by letting the game happen to him, letting the bat meet the ball. Because bat and ball want to collide, he says, and effort skews the alignment. He wears Eleven, as I did, but in every other way. I’m in the hometown bleachers as he watches the ball into the catcher’s mitt, so patient, his whole life ahead of him to waste; he’ll take three strikes looking if they’re not quite where his bat wants them. I’d still be unmarried and undivorced with that attitude, but the game is easy for Eleven Junior. When I played, I wanted to rocket balls over the fence like a man with a vendetta, but mostly they glanced off my bat into the dugout sending teammates scrambling. When my boy’s hittin’em hard, there’s no better place than the ballpark, but I must do two things at once: observe the game and make stories on my laptop, where I’m the All Star. Tappity-tap. My characters play games I invent from positions I assign. Tappity-tap. Spouses and lovers toe the infield grass, relatives and workfriends pace their outfield patches, each with a part in the pageant, everyone focused on home. Senior is pitching to Junior. He shakes off signs until the catcher surrenders and lets him hurl it. I close my computer. Junior’s at the plate in a Bunt Situation while his coach pointlessly taps his earlobes, testicles, and elbows. Everyone glares at me as if I’d shouted out “Take Him Yard!” instead of just thinking it. Dads and coaches can’t just let the game happen to their kids. I watch him shrug and take another strike and wonder whether what he does will be of any consequence.

Original Copyright © FEB 27, 2007
Revised Copyright © MAR 05, 2026