Walking across the deck to our backyard, I start wondering why I sometimes find myself thinking of baseball as a burden. Nearly my entire life, I have loved baseball—in fact, I was an all-star Little League first baseman and pitcher back when I was a kid. Though certainly not as athletic as I once was, my job as marketing and publicity director for a book publishing company means I’m still pitching—only nowadays, it’s books and authors that I’m pitching and not baseballs. But I have always loved baseball, and the summers of 1977 through 1979 were magical times for me as a young Yankees fan. Reggie Jackson, Willie Randolph, Lou Piniella, Ron Guidry, Bucky Dent, Catfish Hunter . . . great players with these great names that sounded like some kind of grand and magnificent novel, and something beyond mere real life. Those were the years that I also started playing guitar and started to become a musician. I remember how sad I felt the night I heard the news on CBS-TV that Thurmon Munson had died in a plane crash—and when John Lennon was killed a little over a year later in December 1980, I remember thinking there was always going to be something about baseball and music that haunted me a bit. Around that time, I started thinking more about guitar solos than baseball teams. And now as I get ready to catch a baseball with my son in the backyard, I find I’m looking forward to sharing this with him—I feel again like maybe I’m part of a team, rather than just going it alone.
 
We’re set up in the long but narrow vertical stretch of grass in the backyard along the side of the house. My son throws me the ball, and we start the calm and steady flow of a lighthearted catch between a kid and his dad (actually, I’m a stepdad—but right now, I’m just the guy with the other baseball glove). We build a pretty good rhythm in the catch, and we’re having a pretty good time. There’s no need for talking, really—the throwing of the baseball back and forth stands as its own conversation. Movie addict that I am, my mind starts thinking back to that scene when Robert Redford is having that catch in the wheat field with his son in The Natural. Of course, wheat fields and baseball leads one to also think of that Kevin Costner baseball movie Field of Dreams—I may not be watching old Twilight Zone episodes while having this catch, but I have already flashed back on two great baseball movies. To my mind, it’s a fair trade.
 
Nothing lasts forever, though, and we start to lose our pace and concentration a bit. My son launches a few too many throws over my head to keep us in the groove. I wind up throwing too many grounders in a row, much to my son’s annoyance—the phrase “That was so lame!” escapes his lips a few more times than I would hope to hear. After one more throw over my head and into the back of the wooden fence, I decide to switch things up a bit and suggest that my son practice his pitching with me. He agrees, visibly glad to be on to something different. With thoughts of Yankees pitcher Catfish Hunter and Yankees catcher Thurmon Munson in my head from back in the day, I get into the customary catcher’s crouch position and wait for the pitch.
 
It has been almost six months since my son has pitched a baseball to me, and he has improved—a lot. What used to hit my mitt with a languid thwap sound now smacks into the deep pocket of my glove with a thick-hitting snap; what used to sometimes be a series of hastily-thrown pitches way outside are now suddenly (and consistently) landing squarely in the strike zone. By the thirtieth pitch, of course, I realize that my son is correct—hunkered down on the ground like this and bent in a position that’s starting to pulse a slow-burn ache through my knees, I am in fact quite lame. However, we are both having a lot of fun and I’m helping my son to build up his skills and his confidence. Things change fast between kids and parents, though, and this part of the catch will only last about another fifteen minutes before it’s my turn to accidentally throw the ball over my son’s head. It sails into the bushes, not unlike a line drive to center field guaranteed to get at least a double—and maybe even bring a runner home. Admittedly in pain from crouching for so long, I use that fail-safe parental logic that kids can’t stand—I point out to my son that it’s getting too dark out and he still has that shower to take before he goes to bed. They hear your words of wisdom, but kids basically take it as a dodge or a cop-out on your part—and you have to wonder for the rest of the night whether or not they’re right. Before we head back to the house in somewhat grumpy silence, however, I make a last gesture of connection for the day by retrieving the ball from behind the thick wall of branches, bushes, and brambles that line the backyard fence. And even though my son points out that we have other baseballs in the yard, I count it as a small personal triumph when he picks that same rescued baseball I pulled from out of the bushes the next time he asks me to have a catch. Perhaps I’m not so lame, after all . .