Out in Right Field
Here’s Coach Rob Morrow teaching me and the boys something about life and baseball during Spring Training, 2011. (Photo by Eileen Morrow)
It was game 1 of Little League, and it was the first game that Dad wasn’t on the pitcher’s mound tossing to me and my nose picking friends on the Red team or the Yellow team anymore. Now, I was out there with the training wheels off as one of the “big kids” on the Astros. That said, because of my birthday falling late in the summer, I was quite literally the youngest kid in the league, and my baptism by fire came early in the game.
With two outs and a runner on second in the bottom of the 2nd or 3rd inning, the opposing batter popped a blooper down the right field line. After that half step back of hesitant, nervous assessment, my feet carried me toward the point of impact, right near the foul line. I scooped it up, and hurled it with everything I had toward home. I almost fell over.
I’ll be darned if that ball didn’t land a few feet in front of the catcher, catch a notch God must have placed there for me, and bounce directly into the catcher’s mitt. To my sheer delight, he tagged the runner out, and the inning was over. I’d stopped the run from scoring, and I smacked my glove in delight and trotted back to the dugout.
I don’t think I had a single hit that game, and I don’t think we won, but it didn’t matter. I was really in it now. And man, it felt good.
I played every season but one from age 5 until early adulthood, to include a single season of Division III ball, which was really a dream come true. Truth be told, for various reasons I didn’t have the heart when I tried out for my high school team, and naturally I didn’t make the cut. Being a mediocre Varsity Lacrosse player and playing local Babe Ruth ball had to suffice for the time being.
Right when I was starting college and had somehow convinced myself that maybe, just maybe I could help start a Lacrosse program at my school, old Coach Phil caught me hovering near the baseball display table at the student center and said, “You’re built like a pitcher. We’re starting fall ball soon. You should come try out.”
Thank God I did. It was the best season of sports I’ve ever had, and one of my best friends, Luke Starre, and I struck up a deep friendship rooted in brotherhood, faith, and love of the game (see pictures). I have stories for days from that season, especially our professional quality spring training down at Port St. Lucy and Vero Beach, Fl.
Baseball, not to mention sports in general, has woven itself throughout my entire life. I grew up watching hundreds of Yankees games at my grandparents’ house or listening to them on the handheld AM radio they always had out on the deck. My Dad coached me from the time I could hold a plastic bat and ball in the backyard on the fundamentals, even doing so into my pre-teen years. A family friend bought me access to a baseball youth camp one summer coached by semi-pro cadre. I snagged a few games in the old Yankee Stadium before they built the newest one. I went to as many Pittsburgh Pirates games as possible when I was in college. I’ve been to ball games in Kansas City with dear friends and a game in Washington with my then girlfriend, now wife. And I have openly hated the Red Socks the whole way (I’m obligated to, you see).
There were some real highs over the years with baseball. At age 12 I smacked a two-run double to right center when we were playing our rival middle school, and I beamed with pride as the girls from Language Arts cheered me on. As a teenager I’d purposefully line myself up with hits to the outfield just so I could dive at them for my own catch worthy of ESPN’s “Top 10.” In my short college career, I found out what it was like to get called in from the bullpen and throw a sneaky four seamer up and inside to get my team out of a real jam.
Some years of baseball were more fruitful than others, and overall my teams might have lost just as many games as we’d won, maybe even more. Winning felt good, but perhaps more importantly I learned how to take the pain of losing a game, or dropping that fly ball I’d seen a thousand times, pick the gravel out of a skinned knee from sliding into the bag a little too hard, and brush off the welt-inducing, tear-welling fastball to the shoulder. My heart broke when I watched the lights shut off at my college field after just one season as they’d cut the program. But you pick up, and you press on, hoping to play another day.
Regardless of slowing public interest in the sport due to the growth of the NFL, the games taking too long, and any number of other reasons, going to a ball game will always be a joy to me. Playing in them is even a bigger thrill. I’ve dreamt of finding an adult league and trying to relive the glory days, or perhaps make a few more, before I’m ready to commit to hanging up the cleats for good. Truth be told, slow pitch softball only sort of scratches the itch for me.
There’s always been a few underlying themes. The love of my Dad runs deep throughout baseball for me, and if I ever have boys I hope that I’ll be able to share this with them. Because of Dad’s work schedule, Mom certainly earned her way into the scorebook by taking me to hundreds of my games. Heck, so did my grandparents. My college team openly prayed together and even invited opposing teams to join us. I’ve had wonderful life experiences because of the sport.
With any sport, but especially baseball, the highs are highs, the lows are low, and there’s a lot of time riding somewhere in the middle. Funny, that’s kind of how life seems to go.
What I’d give right now to be out in right field…
-MJVW
John and Pete Hostetler, me, and Collin Oligny after a nail-biter in Pittsburgh. Despite three back-to-back home runs, the Bucs ended up losing.