Baseball Season

At 4:00 I go into James' room to wake him up from his afternoon nap. He looks up in bleary-eyed confusion for a moment, then realizes that it's me and immediately sits straight up.
"Are the kids gone from school? Can we go play baseball?"

I make him try to go potty first, but he's already telling me about where he's going to stand, and by the time I've found my fleece he's already holding his red plastic baseball bat. I get his shoes on and he insists he'd rather wear his winter coat than a jacket. It's cold out, so I pull on a wool hat and gloves, then get my baseball mitt and a real baseball. (He won't have anything to do with a tennis ball or racquetball at the baseball diamond.)

We walk out the front door and down the steps to the sidewalk, then cross the street with the familiar liturgy of looking left, right, acknowledging any traffic, and hurrying across to the primary school parking lot. James almost breaks into a run as we approach the baseball diamond. For some reason he insists that I stand at third base while he inspects home plate and declares that he's ready for a first pitch.

He is entirely serious. He stands directly on home plate, not beside it, then taps the dirt twice with his bat and stares at me expectantly, waiting for the pitch. He tells me to throw it fast. I lob him an underhand pitch from about three yards away, and he swings and misses. The ball rolls to the fence, and he dashes off to retrieve it immediately, then runs up to home plate again and throws it back to me. He takes his stance, taps the ground with his bat, and watches me expectantly. He still hasn't smiled.

I throw another pitch, and he gets closer. This time as he throws it back he tells me I should throw it with my glove, "like in George." I make a show of performing a more traditional wind-up with the ball in my mitt, and only toss it underhand at the last second after seeming to twist my whole body into the throw. He actually connects with the ball a bit this time and it rolls forward a few feet into the grass. He's too surprised to remember to start running towards first, and instead leans forward and throws it back to me again.

He continues to hit one for about every dozen he misses, but still won't run the bases once he connects because "he needs to hit a real home run." At one point I ask him if he's cold and would like to go inside, since the wind is picking up and his cheeks are flushed. He says yes and we begin to walk back down the sidwalk, but about halfway up he changes his mind and says he'd like to play more baseball.

We return to the diamond, and I pitch to him some more. He swings in about the same spot almost every time, so I get a little better at throwing the pitches about where he's going to swing. He still won't smile as I pitch to him. He is singularly focused on practicing batting. Finally a brother and sister come to the playground and watch him at the fence with their dog. James doesn't notice them for several minutes, but he grins when he sees the dog.

When he's finally ready to be done practicing baseball he takes a couple turns sliding down the slides and riding the swings, and I play right along with him on the empty playground. His fingers are downright icy when I hold his hand to walk back. I ask him if he wants to play on the swings tomorrow too.

Maybe after we play some baseball.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

First off, it was an amazing day yesterday. We took a 4 mile walk to the library along the Erie Canal, visited a coffee shop for a snack, played outside in a beautiful courtyard for an hour, visited the car wash, and went to a baseball game, all for a total of $5. (We bought an ice cream at the ballgame.) Between free tickets and gift cards, it was the perfect Friday off.

The baseball tickets were a gift from a church friend that was rained out. We've been meaning to use them for some time, because James has become quite the little baseball fan. It's through Curious George, of course. We found a beginner book called George Home Run and later the corresponding TV episode that's all about a baseball game and learning how to count. It actually has been very helpful with his numbers--he no longer skips from 2 to 6 when he counts to 12. In the story Curious George has to run the bases for his friend Marco when Marco's foot is hurt, so James for the last few months has regularly done laps around the garden, the living room and the supermarket shouting "I'm runnin' the bases for Marco, I'm runnin' the bases for Marco!" Then he'll slide into you, wait for you to tap him, and declare him "safe!" (He's never out) He ended up picking a plastic baseball bat from a neighbor, a little blue baseball mitt from Target, two old hardballs of mine from the storage unit, and four rubber bases as a special treat. (He loved these so much that they came with him to Houghton, Maryland, and Pennsylvania so that he could continue running the bases for Marco.)

We finally got around to using the tickets last night and set off to downtown Rochester about 6:30. Frontier Field is only a few blocks from Hochstein, where J and I both teach, so we weren't particularly worried about finding a place to park. It turned out to be a mess. This was the second to last game of the season, so more than one couple was using their rained out tickets on a perfect summer evening. And, as it turned out, the Rochester Labor Day parade was just getting set to come down Main Street as we attempted to cross over to our usual Hochstein lot. Traffic was visibly backed up and not moving for about 5 blocks, and we miraculously found some free on street parking behind Hochstein as the parade was set up. James asked lots of questions about the baseball game, but inexplicably burst into tears whenever we suggested that we were going to "watch" it. "No, I not watch it!" he would bawl. (I think he thought that he was going to be playing in the actual game and running the bases for Marco.)

We pulled him out of his carseat, grabbed our bag, and started walking down. The sun was just slanting down over the highway, a train just beyond us, and there was an ever so-slight breeze as we filed in with black and red clad clouds. I forget how exciting it is to walk into a big sporting event. As the stadium came into view we walked past some freshly laid mulch.

"Daddy, I smell a cow."
"How do you know what a cow smells like?"
"He probably knows from Nama's house."
"Where'd the cow go?"
"I don't think the cow is here."
"Where the cow be? Is't comin' the baseball game?"
"Do you think the cow should watch the baseball game with us?"
"No, no, I not watch the baseball game" <cries>

We passed Hochstein, walked under the highway, crossed the street into the ticket queue, and lost all hope. The line was barely moving and backed up nearly half a block. I tried to get in with the rained-out tickets, but we were told we had to make it to the actual ticketing office to get them properly exchanged. After about 15 minutes of waiting in the long line (with James pressing his saddest face up against the fence) an older couple came up and offered us their spare tickets. They told us they were great seats, and that we should get into the park before the game started. We quickly passed off our rained-out tickets to a couple that didn't have any in the line, and made our way into the ballpark. I had one hand and J had the other, and James looked up in awe as we went under the stands, through the crowds, and by all the beer tents and grill stands.

We found our seats just as the national anthem (sung by some RWC students, one of whom Julie knew) started, and we couldn't believe our luck. We were about 6 rows back, almost directly behind home plate.
"I've never sat this close at a sporting event!"
"I've never sat this close at a senior recital...these are amazing seats!"
James clamored down from my lap and stood in stairs, watching as the players warmed up. He was completely captivated by the first pitch, although in the first three at-bats there were two foul balls that came perilously close to us. (Nothing else did the whole night.)

It couldn't have been better weather, or better seats. James was captivated, and the sights and smells of a baseball game washed over us.

"How have we not done this more often? What a great experience."

Then the mascots came onto the field. James saw them, froze, and took a cautious step back. Without taking his eyes off them he found his way back to me, climbed up on my lap as quickly as he could, and then climbed over to J's.

"James are the mascots scary?"
"I wanna go home."
"Oh, they'll go away in a minute."
"I wanna go home."

He didn't move for a while, and would periodically repeat his request to go home. (We had bet that we could make it to the sixth inning, and we were just in the second when we saw the mascots for the first time.)

There was a peanut vendor that came by us several times shouting about peanuts, cracker jack, and beer at the top of his voice. A skinny elderly man in white socks, loafers, a baseball cap and glasses kept a scorebook with a pen next to us as he munched on peanuts. Eventually J had the idea to get some ice cream to perk him up, and I took James up to the food vendors between innings. I couldn't see any place with ice cream in the bustle and the multitude of shops, but then all of a sudden James pointed straight back behind me, declared "I see it!" and showed me a big plastic ice cream cone he'd spotted. We got a huge soft-serve sundae, brought it back to J, and made a mess of it with plastic spoons and napkins as it began to get dark out and we pulled our jackets on.

The game was interesting enough to hold our attention. There was a home team homerun, a double play, and a couple of close calls along the baseline. Once James got some sugar in him he perked up again and began narrating what was happening on the field. He cheered loud every time a foul ball went "way high to the sky" and clapped along with all of the organ music and little pump-up jams.

We made it to the sixth inning before he started misbehaving enough to warrant an iPad bribe, and left after we heard God Bless America and Take Me Out to the Ballgame in the seventh inning stretch. James perked up when he heard the Ballgame song (it's in George Baseball) and I sat him up on my shoulders as we made our way out of the park and back towards our car.

"James, did you have a good time at the baseball game."
"Yeah, I wanna go back" <yawns>
"We'll have to go back sometime, but it is way past bedtime. We need to go to sleep."
"I wanna go back."
"What was your favorite part? Did you like seeing the balls go way high to the sky?"
"Yeah, way high. Wanna do it again."
"Did you like the mascots?"
"No. The mascots wanna go to sleep."
"Yeah, I think the mascots will go to sleep soon."
"They go to sleep in the mascot's house. There's the mascot's house." <points to Hochstein>
"Well, no that's Hochstein. They'll sleep somewhere far far away."
"The mascots sleep far far away?"
"Yes, very far away."
"Okay, the mascots sleep in Pennsylvania."
"Sure."