You start to realize that you’re not a kid anymore when it dawns on you that you can beat your parents at most things.
For about six years, I always beat my dad at Connect Four. It was so blatant that he was throwing games, though, because he’d have about 19 different options for a fourth black checker to fall into, and he’d choose the only one on that ghetto contraption which wouldn’t create Connect Four. Parents are supposed to do that kind of stuff; it’s in the unwritten code that comes with the position.
Finally, one night in my living room, I mauled him. I finally figured out the geometrical, logical concepts inherent in Connect Four and started beating my dad for real. It happened again, and again, and again. I was starting to savor it.
In the winter of 1991, I tried once again to overtake one of my parents, when I threw down five bucks that my Buffalo Bills?notice a loose use of the term here, considering I am not, nor have ever claimed to be, from Buffalo?would beat his New York Giants in the Super Bowl. I figured it was a sure bet. An unassuming 10-year-old, I knew not of the NFC East’s brutal run game. I loved the no-huddle, and I loved to watch James Lofton fly down the sideline, like words on paper from the mind of a literary genius. He was a golden god.
Then Scott Norwood happened. And I spent about two hours sobbing on my living room couch, the same couch where I had sat about two years earlier to beat my dad at Connect Four. My dad even assured me I didn’t have to pay. I did pay him?in about 1998. At that point, however, I realized I might never be able to know as much about sports as my dad, or beat him at important stuff.
Right now it feels like summer, and summer should bring forth memories for any true, red-blooded American of BBQs, family gatherings and the whiffle ball game. Look, don’t believe the masses who tell you that baseball is America’s game, or the few who try to claim basketball or football has replaced it. It’s whiffle ball; it always has been whiffle ball. Ninety-nine percent of the country will never hit a baseball like Barry Bonds, or Barry Zito for that matter, but any Uncle Sam can smack the whiffle ball down to third where his little niece is playing and hustle out a double.
Whiffle ball in backyards and on beaches, is what makes America great. It’s what made my childhood great. If you missed out on it, go buy a $3 bat-and-ball set and ask your roommates to play. The June after Norwood choked wide right, another Summer Masterpiece broke out in my front yard in my old (read: sold) country house. I played first during this classic, and dropped about six balls thrown to me. Bear in mind, you don’t wear a glove during whiffle ball, and the ball is probably the easiest thing to catch this side of a sidelong glance at Champs. But still, I sucked.
I cranked a couple of balls from the plate, though. I rocked a screamer back over the head of the pitcher in around the third inning?I don’t think we kept innings, that made it more special, and yet more confusing?and hustled out a double (my eight-year old cousin was playing middle infield). In the fifth, or what would have been the fifth, with my mom on the deck about to call for dinner?dinner calls end whiffle ball games, not final outs, darkness or anything else?I stood in against my father, the ace hurler, the Cy Young of Sycamore Lane. I was three for three on the day. I hadn’t faced him yet. I had been beating up on my uncles, cousins, whatever. This was my chance against the true blood.
He spun back and let it fly. It was curving, to be sure, but in whiffle ball you got only two swings, and damned if I was gonna let this one pass. I was going to take his curve deep. It was approaching slowly; I could see the air holes. My mom was nervous. She thought dinner would get cold. I only had this one swing. I could sense it. The ball was near.
I kicked my leg forward, Darryl Strawberry-style, and I reached back for the most epic swing of my life. Yellow plastic hit white plastic, and white plastic soared. It was in orbit. It smacked the blue 1981 Oldsmobile in the driveway, about 40 feet away. Home run. Those were the rules. I threw the bat to the side and shot my dad a wink and a smile. My mom called for dinner, and I rounded all the bases, triumphant at last. My dad came up to me as he walked inside for dinner. “Nice shot.” I smiled again.
To this day, whenever the air becomes warm, and the yellow plastic sticks come out, I long for those days, with moms on decks, cousins on second, aunts by the pool talking about how cute this is and fathers on the mound. And still, distanced from all the innocence this was, I smile.
