Fathers & Sons. Boys & Men. And “The Fence”.
NOTE:
‘The Forever Kid’ is about my growing up as a kid in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s
and about my still being a kid today.
This post is about me and my own “kid”.
It was written about 31 years ago… and published in the East Hampton Star,
(a local paper published where my family and I vacation).
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Masha-shamuet...Mahash-shmumet...Masha-muet?
We were never really quite sure how to pronounce it...
so to our family, it simply became…
“The Field”.
Mashashimuet Park, is in Sag Harbor, Long Island, NewYork.
What a kid from Da Bronx was doing there, is another story.
The park has…
tennis courts,
a couple of basketball hoops,
the wide-open spaces required by soccer enthusiasts.
But what makes the field “The Field”…
is its assorted baseball venues.
There’s the “Big Diamond”,
an almost major league-sized baseball jewel,
beautifully manicured, with a high backstop, real bases
and an actual mini-grandstand for spectators,
(should there ever be any).
Then there’s the small softball diamond way in the back,
where the publishing and advertising Sag Haboreans play
on Sunday mornings.
I happen to be an ad guy myself,
but I play in a different game…
on a different diamond.
I play on the Little League diamond, on the hill.
A perfect mini-replica of a big league field,
with scoreboard, mock-dugouts and most importantly…
“The Fence”…
an expanse of green chain-link metal traveling around the length
of the outfield, enclosing the field.
Over the years my teammates on this field have varied .
Used to be the four of us:
Myself,
my wife Marcia,
(decent pitcher),
my daughter Danielle,
(early potential, but sought other areas of 16 year old “teen achievement”)
and my son, Adam.
Truth is, when we first began playing…
6-yr. old Adam would probably have been the number four pick in that draft.
As the years went by, my distaff teammates started coming less often.
They were replaced by a roster of Adam’s peers.
Some bigger than him,
some smaller,
some better than him,
some not as good.
And now (1991), as Adam is one year away from becoming a teen,
(how can it be??),
the players are down to two:
Adam and his dad.
In our “games”, Adam does most of the playing.
I give him the “full workout”…
fielding, throwing, running and hitting.
And I “grade” him.
I must say, while I am an unabashedly overly lenient dad,
I am an extremely tough grader.
After his workout,
as an indulgent self-reward,
I’d force Adam to pitch to me for five to ten swings.
And I can still hit.
So when I’d manage to clear the fence a couple of times,
(a fence made for Little Leaguers!!),
I’m not ashamed to admit ...
it felt giant!
That brings me to last Saturday.
The team went to the field.
Me and Adam.
He wore his Yankee BP jacket
(although the temperature was close to 90) ,
his baggy sweats,
and his cleats.
He certainly looked ready.
And he was.
At his 3rd base position,
he fielded almost every grounder, pop up, and liner flawlessly.
He was on.
I gave him a tough B+.
Next, throwing.
I stood at first, he at third.
I threw to his left, to his right...
he fired the ball back, chest high, with some zip.
Grade? A first-ever A+.
Running?
Well let’s say he’s a good fielder.
Now came BP.
I looked in from the mound as he took his practice cuts.
Somehow he looked smoother than ever before.
And bigger too.
We decided he’d get 50 at bats.
Each time I’d retrieve the four hardballs
and we’d figure out his batting average.
(Baseball plus math...am I a good dad, or what?)
I started working from the mound, taking a while to get the range.
He started his hitting, with much the same problem.
He was however adept at figuring out that 2 for 16 was .125.
Then, suddenly, he got into “the zone”.
A solid line drive to the outfield.
“Nice shot Adam!”.
Little did I know what was to come.
A liner to right, a long shot to left, a hard line drive right back up the middle...
(Uh, that’s where the pitcher stands...and that would be ME!!)
I barely ducked under the screamer.
I think I saw Adam chuckle.
I took a couple of steps back and began throwing harder.
Single, double, single.
(9 for 30 is .300 in any league! )
Adam was, as they say in the majors…
“En fuego”!!
I was, to be honest…
now throwing just about as hard as a bursitis-ridden 41 year old could throw.
I was no Nolan Ryan...but I was faster than Irene Ryan.
That didn’t stop Adam.
16 for 40....400!
Relentless.
And then it happened…
He swung.
I heard it before I saw it.
It had that sound,
the kind you can hear sitting in the stands at the Stadium,
even from the bleachers.
I spun around just to see the ball...clearing the fence.
CLEARING THE FENCE!!!
For the first time in his life,he had…
“Gone yard!”…“Took me deep!”…“Lit it up!”.
And then for a moment we both froze.
It was like some sort of weird tableau.
Adam, having gone where he had never gone before...
looked almost as if he had done something wrong.
I, staring in at him…
feeling a whole new level of admiration and personal thrilI
that I had never felt before.
Our eyes met.
In silence.
Frozen.
Then suddenly the silence was broken
by a sound coming out of my little boy.
But it was not the sound of a little boy.
It was more of the primal scream one can hear
emanating from a 225-pound pro athlete…
”YEAHHHH! YEAHHHH!”
From his inner being came this celebration of machismo.
And then something even more stirring…
Instinctively my son ran to me.
And I to him.
We met halfway between the mound and home plate.
And after exchanging the obligatory “High Five”…we hugged.
And I kissed my son.
And he let me.
And I cried.
In “A League of their Own”, Tom Hanks utters the classic line…
“There’s no crying in baseball”.
Oh yeah? How ‘bout kissing?
At that moment, there was no way
to hold back the tears that welled up in my eyes.
There was no way I wasn’t going to kiss my son.
So there we were…
the boy and his adman dad,
trapped in some schmatltzy McDonald’s-type commercial.
Except the emotions couldn’t have been more real.
And there wasn’t even a crispy fry in sight.
Adam walked back to the plate.
I turned to walk back to the mound…
and gave myself one last private “Yeahhh!”.
When that ball cleared the fence…
I knew Adam had cleared even more than that.
And I knew it wouldn’t be long before
he’d be beating me in a game of one-on-one hoops,
or outscoring me on Jeopardy.
And I can say with all honesty…
that instead of feeling the expected nostalgic sadness
about my lost childhood and my own mortality…
I felt the ultimate joy of his gaining a bit of manhood
and thereby extending my immortality.
It was and is a moment…
that I know I will always be able to call on from my consciousness
at anytime…
and smile.
I threw another pitch and he lined it into Mashashimuet’s left center field.
Would love to hear about your “coming of age”
moments shared with your kids.
