Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Ball Boy
Last Saturday night I really didn’t feel like myself - or maybe I felt more like myself than I usually do. At the party I ate prodigiously, took a short nap, hopped in the pool for a few rounds of water volleyball (shorts v skins), then towelled off, ate more, and (once the Yuengling keg had been refilled), started in with the land-based volleyball.
Differences from the former game were manifold: the water was much shallower, being several feet below us under the turf. Also, it was dark, going on pitch black, and - most significantly - this wasn’t a game against shrieking sisters and a 15-year-old cousin, it was against men with military training and serious physiques and attitudes. We broke it off after each team had won one game and the ball rolled down the long, steep back hill all the way to the compost heap, which no one wanted to visit in the dark. I acquitted myself sufficiently admirably to be dubbed “Danimal” for my grim game face and unreturnable topspin serves.
It put me in mind of t-ball with Mrs. S, who taught phys ed in my elementary school.
Her son was one of the only “popular” kids whom I didn’t think held me in utter contempt. I was unpopular for a lot of reasons, some of which even made sense to me at the time. A primary one was my poor skills on the field of sportsmanship. I positively sucked at: basketball, sockball, kickball, four-square, socko, gymnastics, running, jumping rope, jumping otherwise, hopscotch, and volleyball. I was weak, but not utterly helpless, at handball. I had a tetherball pole at home but being good at tetherball didn’t win me a lot of friends. The only skill I’d really honed as an athalete was being a good loser.
It was near the end of sixth grade. We’d just finished an embarassing month-long series of lessons in t-ball (for the uninitiated, the ball rests on a plastic post called the T and the batter swings at it as it sits motionless in the air). Through this process I was able to show all my classmates how far I could drive the T - to second base - while the ball itself dribbled slowly, invariably, pathetically foul. Thus it was with great trepidation that I heard Mrs. S tell us that she would give each of us a chance to take a swing at a pitched softball. We went in alpha order and Mrs. S did the pitching. The ball was lively and the infielders were active as my classmates scrambled to field grounders and flies, the ball making a merry popping sound with each successful swing of the bat.
Then it was me. Skinny, clumsy, uncomfortable. At bat. The infield moved in, sneering. The outfield moved in, laughing. Mrs. S looked at me with years of leathery tan on her face and kind warmth in her eyes. My pitch, like all the others, was underhand and easy - a classic “softball.” I’d taken two practice swings with the aluminum bat, stiffly, hesitantly. But that ball she pitched to me was so big and sweet and slow, I could see every embossed seam on it as it approached. I can see them still.
My swing was well-timed and relaxed. I put my shoulder and hip into it, in an unfamiliarly aggressive way. The sound as the meat of the bat crushed the ball was not “pop.” It was more like, “whump,” a heavy, resounding sound that echoed back off the low classroom buildings in the distance. We weren’t running bases in this exercise so I just stood and watched, as did all but one of the fielders and all those waiting behind the backstop. One guy in left field was running back as fast as he could, but obviously was in a losing battle. The ball cleared the pepper trees, didn’t fall till it was nearly to the classrooms. For the rest of that day, I was the object of silent, grudging respect. Shortly after that we were graduated to Jr High and I never had to endure the derision of my classmates in quite the same way again.
Thanks, Mrs. S. Danimal remembers.
