The Tournament I Called Behind the Plate

Hayden was around first before the left fielder caught up to it, and he pulled into second standing up, a clean double, his first hit of his first tournament, and the Bandit bleachers came up off their feet.

My mother was on her feet too, behind the backstop, both hands in the air, the straw hat falling off the back of her head, hollering for her grandboy and her son in the same breath.

I stood up at the plate and dusted it off with my brush like it was any other play, because I had a game to call. But I was watching second base out of the corner of my eye.

And Hayden, standing on that bag with his helmet on and the throw coming back in, turned toward home plate. He found me in the mask.

And he reached up with two fingers and he tipped the bill of his batting helmet toward me. Just a little. The way a ballplayer tips his hat to somebody he respects.

An eleven-year-old boy, on second base, tipping his helmet to the umpire who happened to be his dad.

I had to turn and brush off a plate that did not need brushing. I was not going to let a whole ballpark watch the man in blue cry. But I will tell you, behind that mask, I was not the only thing fogged up.

After the Last Out

The Bandits lost that first game, as it happens. Nine to seven.

I rang a Bandit runner out at the plate in the sixth on a bang-bang play, my own boy’s team, and it was the right call and everybody knew it, even Pete, who just tipped his cap at me and said, “Good eye, Blue.”

But Hayden’s double stood, and he scored two batters later, and after the last out he came running up to me where I was packing my gear by the fence, still in his dirty uniform, and he threw his arms around me, chest protector and all.

“Dad,” he said into my shirt, “you called me out at second on the steal in the fourth.”

“You were out by a mile,” I said.

“I know,” he said, and he was grinning. “Marcus said his dad would never call him out. I told him my dad calls it fair even when it’s me.” He said it like it was the finest thing he owned.

Over his head I saw my mother folding up her lawn chair. And past her, in the gravel lot, I saw Crystal.