The Umpire Who Called His Son Out
The first pitch was a ball inside. The second one was a fastball on the outside corner, the same pitch he’d taken for strike three in the fourth. This time he was ready for it.
He didn’t try to pull it. He went with it, the way Mike had been teaching him all spring, and he drove it into the gap in left center.
It hit the grass and rolled all the way to the fence, right by the line of trees.
The runner from first scored easily. Tie game. Jace went into second base standing up, and the throw came in too late to do anything about it.
He stood on second with his hands on his knees, breathing hard.
The Thunder bleachers went crazy. Kim was screaming. Mike Daly was clapping in the third base coaching box.
And on the first base side, up near the top, I saw Courtney standing up with both hands over her mouth.
The next batter was a little kid named Tyler, the smallest boy on the team, who hadn’t had a hit all game.
He took two pitches. Then he lined the third one over the second baseman’s head into right field.
Jace was running on contact with two outs. He rounded third base, and Mike was windmilling his arm, sending him home.
The right fielder came up throwing, but the ball went to the cutoff man and stopped there.
I came out from behind the plate and set up for the play.
Then I saw there wasn’t going to be a play, and I crouched down over the plate with my mask still on so I could see it clean.
Behind me, my mother was clapping from her lawn chair right behind the backstop fence. I could hear her over everybody, the way you can always hear your own mother.
Jace came down the third base line in his red uniform and stepped on home plate with his left foot. The run counted. The game was over. The Thunder had won four to three.
Jace didn’t keep running. He stopped right on top of home plate and turned around to face me, still crouched there with my mask on.
His chest was heaving. There was a smear of infield dirt across his cheek.
He looked at me for one second. Then he reached up and took hold of the bill of his batting helmet, and he tipped it to me.
The way the old ballplayers do, the way you see on the old highlight reels. Slow and on purpose.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He held it for a second, and then he put it back down and ran to his teammates, and they swallowed him up between the plate and the dugout.
I stayed in my crouch for a moment longer than I needed to. I’m not ashamed to say I couldn’t see real well for a little bit.
Behind the backstop, Mom was still clapping. She was clapping for Jace, and she was clapping for me, both of us at once, the way she has clapped for every good thing either one of us has ever done.
The Bloomington coach walked over to me at the plate while I was taking off my chest protector.
He shook my hand and said, “Best called game I’ve seen this year. I mean that. You ever want to work our tournament in Normal, you call me.”
After the handshake line, Jace came over to the backstop and hugged his grandmother through the fence.