Poor Oliver. This kid is (as the kids call it) a hot mess. Claritin, Inhalers, Benadryl and Nebulizers… ohh my.
The pollen covers the earth like a warm blanket. Oliver’s allergies cover him like a goddamn plastic garbage bag.
I don’t get how we can land people on the moon, clone humans and gather sediment from lakes on Mars, but someone can’t figure out how to keep my sons eyes from turning purple every night.
Damn You Pollen. Damn YOU!
They might practice wrestling moves on each other daily and they might annoy the ever living hell out of each other on a regular basis, but there is one thing you can’t deny… they are each other’s biggest fan!
Ollie’s first real game turned out to be a heated battle of four year olds fighting for the title of least amount of children left on the field at the end of the game. Four innings of T-ball on an early Saturday morning might be torture for some, but not for these two tag team partners.
Just when you thought things were going to go to hell… the team was losing interest. The players were losing their minds and there were no more dandelions to be picked… then out of no where here comes Jackson to coach first base.
It was like the clouds cleared, the Red Sea had parted… his arrival was a miracle. It had a direct impact on the outcome of the game and dare I say it may have changed the landscape of T-Ball forever (Sandlot reference).
Jax was just the spark that Ollie’s team needed. Oliver was completely inspired and began the “Rally Heard ‘Round the World.” We came back from a large deficit… I’m actually not sure if that’s actually true. I don’t think we keep score and T-ball. But for the sake of the story we were down quite a few runs I needed someone to come up with a big hit. Oliver was just that guy.
…and the rest is history, to be told for years to come. There’s even a rumor that Oliver‘s hat that and Jackson’s autograph on the scorecard are displayed probably in the Hall of Fame…
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’m not sure how many times I can write about how important baseball is to me and the fabric of my family. Go back and read things that I’ve written about my grandfather. We shared so many amazing experiences through baseball and those amazing experiences don’t lessen at all even as time goes by. In fact the feeling of extreme happiness and family connection is only heightened as each my sons experience the same firsts as I did so many years ago through “America’s Past Time.”
This time it was Oliver’s turn to don his first jersey and baseball cap, to slip on a pair of cleats and take a few hacks in the batter’s box. The smile on his little face when he was handed his first jersey, pulled on his hat and walked out onto the field was indescribable. He might as well been in heaven (not Iowa).
I watched this tiny little baseball player so excited to figure out where to stand in the infield and how to run the bases. I won’t lie, I was nervous. Oliver can not stand in one place for longer than a nanosecond, and I’m sure he would have been the kid in the field chasing butterflies and/ or picking dandelions (or at least chasing the kid who’s chasing the butterflies).
However, he was anything but disinterested. He was the one who was first in line to bat, first to put his glove on and run out into the field and the first to give coach knuckles after the game. He loved every second of being with his friends, being in the field and getting to wield a giant metal bat without repercussions.
He may be a few years away from really understanding the intricacies of the game and maybe even a few years from that before he understand how important baseball is to me. But today was about him.
Hopefully as he grows he’ll be able to enjoy the game as much as I did when I played and more importantly how much I enjoyed the time I spent with my grandfather as we experienced the game together, because there is nothing that compares to being able to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in you arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases … stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third and wrap your arms around the bag.
Hopefully one day he’ll get it, but for now, he enjoys being out there… maybe it’s just about getting dirty, but he enjoys it nonetheless.
Sorry Sons: Chronicles of a New Dad 