NOAH ADAMS, Host: For many families, of course, when you say baseball,
that does not mean the major leagues. It means the baseball played on the lots behind the
grade schools of the country, on the diamonds between strip malls and at the edge of
soybean fields. Bill Harley knows that's where the real game is played and learned.
BILL HARLEY, Commentator: Generally, I avoid looking to kids' organized sports
for any kind of inspiration. I think we're better off leaving the kids alone and let them
pick teams for themselves. But last year, I had an epiphany watching an organized
league game, and the experience has spawned a philosophy I hold close to my heart. I call
it going for the dog.
Last year, my younger son played T-ball. This is the bottom step on the 20-rung
ladder leading to Major League baseball, where it is possible to make millions of dollars
and buy your parents a large house. Needless to say, I was delighted when Dylan wanted to
play, though the bank wouldn't give me the $400,000 mortgage I promptly requested.
The rules for T-ball are different in many ways from the major leagues. First,
there are no agents. There is no reserve clause. You go to the team that chooses you. In
fact, there are only two teams in the league, with 25 kids on each team. Parents are
friendly to each other, a civility which will dissolve in several years as the lottery for
positions in the major league comes closer and closer. In T-Ball, everybody bats each
inning, regardless of how many outs there are. In fact, an out is a rare occurrence. All
25 players play each inning, and are littered through the infield, forming a wall of
humanity through which it is virtually impossible for a ball to pass.
On each team, there's one player who insists on fielding every ball and then
running after the base runner, never throwing it. Balls are never thrown, and if they are
thrown, they must either go over the head of the intended recipient or hit them in the
back. Every player who scores has hit a home run, no matter how many times the ball
has been thrown into the outfield. No such thing as an error. In T-ball, each player
has a different concept of the score. In T-ball, kids have to go to the bathroom
almost immediately. Civilian parents go out into the field and console their children who
have skinned their knees or bumped into their neighboring infielder. And, of course,
in T-ball, no one pitches. The ball sits on a plastic tee, waiting for the batter to
hit it, which happens once every three batters.
Now, on the other team, there was a girl I will call Tracy. Tracy came each
week. I know, since my son's team always played her team. She was not very good. She had
coke-bottle glasses and hearing aids on each ear. She ran in a loping, carefree way, with
one leg pulling after the other, one arm windmilling wildly in the air. Everyone in the
bleachers cheered for her, regardless of for what team their progeny played. In all the
games I saw, she never hit the ball, not even close. It sat there on the tee waiting to be
hit and it never was. Sometimes, after ten or eleven swings, Tracy hit the tee. The
ball would fall off the tee and sit on the ground six inches in front of home plate.
"Run! Run," yelled Tracy's coach, and Tracy would lope off to first,
clutching the bat in both arms and smiling. Someone usually woke up and ran down with the
ball before she reached first. Everyone applauded.
The last game of the season, Tracy came up, and through some fluke, or simply a
nod toward the law of averages, she creamed the ball. She smoked it right up the middle,
through the legs of 17 players. Kids dodged as it went by or looked absentmindedly
at it as it rolled unstopped, seemingly gaining in speed, hopping over second base,
heading into center field. And once it reached there, there was no one to stop it.
Have I told you that there are no outfielders in T-ball? There are for three
minutes in the beginning of every inning, but then they move into the infield to be closer
to the action, or, at least, to their friends. Tracy hit the ball and stood at home,
delighted. "Run!" yelled her coach. "Run!" All the parents, all of us,
we stood and screamed, "Run, Tracy, run, run! Go!" Tracy turned and smiled at
us, and then, happy to please, galumped off to first. The first base coach waved his arms
'round and 'round when Tracy stopped at first. "Keep going, Tracy, keep going!
Go!" Happy to please, she headed to second.
By the time she was halfway to second, seven members of the opposition had
reached the ball and were passing it among themselves. It's a rule in T-ball -
everyone on the defending team has to touch every ball. The ball began to make its
long and circuitous route toward home plate, passing from one side of the field to the
other. Tracy headed to third. Adults fell out of the bleachers. "Go, Tracy,
go!" Tracy reached third and stopped, but the parents were very close to her now and
she got the message. Her coach stood at home plate calling her as the ball passed over the
first baseman's head and landed in the field team's empty dugout. "Come on, Tracy!
Come on, baby! Get a home run!"
Tracy started for home, and then it happened. During the pandemonium, no one
had noticed the 12-year-old geriatric mutt that had lazily settled itself down in front of
the bleachers, five feet from the third-base line. As Tracy rounded third, the dog,
awakened by the screaming, sat up and wagged its tail at Tracy as she headed down the
line. The tongue hung out, mouth pulled back in an unmistakable canine smile, and Tracy
stopped, right there. Halfway home, 30 feet from a legitimate home run.
She looked at the dog. Her coach called, "Come on, Tracy! Come on
home!" He went to his knees behind the plate, pleading. The crowd cheered, "Go,
Tracy, go! Go, Tracy, go!" She looked at all the adults, at her own parents shrieking
and catching it all on video. She looked at the dog. The dog wagged its tail. She looked
at her coach. She looked at home. She looked at the dog. Everything went to slow motion. She
went for the dog. It was a moment of complete stunned silence. And then, perhaps not
as loud, but deeper, longer, more heartfelt, we call applauded as Tracy fell to her knees
to hug the dog. Two roads diverged on a third-base line. Tracy went for the dog. I hope
you go for the dog too.
NOAH ADAMS: Bill Harley is a singer, songwriter, and story teller. He lives in
Seekonk, Massachusetts.