THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 19, 1994 TAG: 9407190035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MY FAMILY
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
IT LOOKS SO easy on TV.
The batter steps to the plate, hits a routine pop-up. The shortstop settles under it. The ball hangs, then the fielder snags it, one-handed.
Sure.
So there we are, behind first base at Harbor Park - me, my wife and two boys. It's the second pitch of the game.
The batter lofts one waaaay up. Over the roof. Past the clouds. Off Sputnik. Rebounds off the rings of Saturn. It comes down about Mach 4, and it's heading our way.
I do the only sensible thing. I reach up over my 7-year-old's head to grab the souvenir. My kids will worship me.
But the ball is beyond my reach. It smashes the concrete walk beside my son's seat, makes a sharp thwack, then bounces high as the upper deck. Some guy three sections back grabs it.
Only then do I realize: That ball would have broken nine fingers and ripped off the 10th.
And Andrew, the 7-year-old, is wailing because I didn't get him a foul ball.
I file this episode under the growing mental file, ``Things I Have Learned At The Ballpark.'' The moral, I believe, is: Better to buy a souvenir cap than risk Major Medical on a foul ball.
The realization shames me.
I am no novice to baseball. I have attended hundreds of games at Shea Stadium, Wrigley Field and Met Park. I am no novice to fatherhood, either. I've mastered Spock and Brazelton and Seuss.
But every trip to the ballpark with the boys - Andrew, 7, and Evan, 4 - convinces me I am way out of my league.
There was the drink incident.
It was cellular phone night at Harbor Park. Everyone gets a free imitation cellular phone. It's really a drink bottle with a long straw.
Before the first pitch, I wait on a long line for the obligatory drinks. I debate: Two large Cokes (cheaper) or four small ones (avoids fights)?
I go for two. Cheap is cheap.
But the happiness lasts only two innings. That's when Evan, somehow, manages to kick over the monster Coke under my wife's seat, spilling it all, raising the level of the Elizabeth River three feet.
Now, how did the kid get his legs so far under the seat to kick the Coke? And how did Dad get his brain so scrambled that he didn't foresee this and buy the four small Cokes in the first place?
I dunno.
The seats were a problem, too.
Did I know, when I bought the tickets, we'd be sitting with the right-fielder? That Evan couldn't see the pitcher without sitting on Mom's lap? That both kids would rather run to the upper deck and watch Rip Tide do wheelies on a motorcycle?
I dunno.
Sometimes, it feels like I'm sitting in a Triple-A dugout, waiting for the call to the Big Leagues of Dad-dom. You hit an occasional homer. You raise your batting average. Then a 4-year-old unravels your nerves like the string inside a baseball, until he hits the hard-core center and makes you yelp.
Back to the Instructional League.
But then I remember Mother's Day. We left in the seventh inning, score tied 3-3, kids whining like Bill Buckner after the '86 World Series.
The next morning, I read in the paper that the Tides won on a dramatic grand slam in the bottom of the ninth. We were on Interstate 264 at the time.
So maybe I can't turn the double-play. Maybe I'll never make the Hall of Fame.
But, like all good Dads, at least I've learned the sacrifice.
average. Then a 4-year-old unravels your nerves like the string inside a baseball, until he hits the hard-core center and makes you yelp.
Back to the Instructional League.
But then I remember Mother's Day. We left in the seventh inning, score tied 3-3, kids whining like Bill Buckner after the '86 World Series.
The next morning, I read in the paper that the Tides won on a dramatic grand slam in the bottom of the ninth. We were on Interstate 264 at the time.
So maybe I can't turn the double-play. Maybe I'll never make the Hall of Fame.
But, like all good Dads, at least I've learned the sacrifice. by CNB