This appears in my column in the sports section of the Business Mirror's Monday June 15, 2009 edition.
http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/sports/11730-hand-in-glove-prologue.html
Hand In Glove
by rick olivares
Prologue
The son asked the father for a toy for his birthday and as the adult looked around for a suitable present (with pain in his heart for he believed that the children of today have eschewed many old time values that remain plenty relevant in the formation of the young), the father reverted to his inner youth when he spied a baseball glove in a sporting goods store. The Rawlings glove was magical, an act of august poignancy, for as soon as he put his hands inside the mitt, not only was he was transported back in time but he finally knew the ideal gift.
Flashback
I tugged my baseball cap down low. Afterwards, someone asked if I did it to intimidate the pitcher. It was far from that. I didn’t want him to see my eyes as I was afraid of going down on strikes or getting thrown out with some weak-kneed slow roller.
We were down by a run and with two innings left we were fast running out of chances to pull out a win.
The afternoon sun was falling yet it managed to draw out beads of sweat that made my nose as wet as a dog’s. I tasted the salty grime that trickled down my face yet I didn’t flinch or wipe it lest I lost my concentration. It was bad enough that the mournful horns of a passing train and its chugging engine that clicked clacked on the tracks drowned out instructions from coaches and teammates alike. But still, batter up.
I didn’t wiggle the bat like some others would as if they dared the pitcher to hurl the ball towards them. I pulled it back slightly above my right shoulder as I dug my feet in the ground in order to draw some power. Home plate was an improvised line in the sand of the newly harvested rice field that served as our playground. It was the same for the other bases and the paths that made up the impromptu diamond yet this represented our noblest of accomplishments in those summer days.
It might have been a sandlot game but the match was for real and for neighborhood bragging rights that lasted all the way to the next summer.
I held the bat as firmly as my small hands could and no, the ball didn’t come at me in slow motion like it did in the movies. It sizzled and bore down on me. In my earlier at-bats, I whiffed and whiffed some more until I struck out swinging both times as my teammates shook their heads at the kid who couldn’t hit a lick. Plus, I was deathly afraid I’d get beaned right between the eyes.
I recovered from my momentary shock and just in the nick to time to put up my bat to defend myself. I had no illusions about crushing the ball to the outfield or the nearby haystack. I was just hoping to make contact and get the ball anywhere past the infield.
Instead, I accidentally bunted it and no one seemed ready for it as it stayed safe instead of rolling out into foul territory. As the shock wore off, I could hear our coach yelling for me to bust my ass down first base.
Maybe everyone was yelling, clapping or cursing but the only sound I heard was the beating of my heart. “Easy pickings,” I thought to myself as I waited for the throw to first that would end the inning.
I may not have been the best hitter on the team but I could run like the wind. I arrived ahead of the ball and the first baseman missed the ball so I motored all the way to second. “Lucky bum,” I once more thought as I held back the smile. I didn’t need to show anything as my grandfather who sat by the bleachers with a stoogie in hand showed all the emotion I needed. I didn’t show any glee because I wanted it to appear as if like I could pull it off all along.
We won that day and the score has been lost to time and faulty memory. But I remember the slap on my back by teammates as we skipped down afterwards to the local convenience store for some ice cream and wafers as we sat on the counter underneath the Lucky Strike sign.
My grandfather plopped down beside me and proudly beamed at me.
He got home from work at 4pm everyday and he’d bring me to the field to play with the neighborhood team. “Experience is the best teacher,” he’d say despite my protestations. Eventually, the fear wore off and I loved every moment of it whether I was hitting or not. On off days, we played catch on the empty field beside the railroad tracks. Later in my adult life, I realized that this was one defining moment in familial relationships when life’s great truths are passed on as easily as the baseball is tossed back and forth while caught by a well-worn mitt.
“Later in my adult life, I realized that this was one defining moment in familial relationships when life’s great truths are passed on as easily as the baseball is tossed back and forth while caught by a well-worn mitt.”
When we were back in his house, he’d pull out those issues of Life magazine and show me pictures of the Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. Mantle, I only learned much later, was only an ornery Oklahoma boy but his chiseled body made me believe that the gods from Olympus had descended from the mountain to play ball among mortal men.
I, we, were the brown brothers who loved the game and played with those gray cotton shirts that read Mobil up front. We played all afternoon long and stank to high heavens that when we got home we were literally scrubbed clean. I had no rubber ducky like Ernie but I had my baseball.
Present Day
As the summer days turned in quickly, I sat down with my son and switched on the TV. It was painful to see the New York Yankees get swept by the Boston Red Sox and I shut off the box feeling somewhat pained.
My son still has his GI Joes and Pokemons but he’s learned to love sports. He loves Arsenal and AC Milan and he did his old man proud when after the Yanks lost their eighth straight to Boston, he asked if I wanted to play catch.
A smile broke the frown on my face as we headed out to the driveway to toss around the baseball. And I went, “You see, son, it’s like this…”
For my granddad and my pop. Happy Father's Day.
http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/sports/11730-hand-in-glove-prologue.html
Hand In Glove
by rick olivares
Prologue
The son asked the father for a toy for his birthday and as the adult looked around for a suitable present (with pain in his heart for he believed that the children of today have eschewed many old time values that remain plenty relevant in the formation of the young), the father reverted to his inner youth when he spied a baseball glove in a sporting goods store. The Rawlings glove was magical, an act of august poignancy, for as soon as he put his hands inside the mitt, not only was he was transported back in time but he finally knew the ideal gift.
Flashback
I tugged my baseball cap down low. Afterwards, someone asked if I did it to intimidate the pitcher. It was far from that. I didn’t want him to see my eyes as I was afraid of going down on strikes or getting thrown out with some weak-kneed slow roller.
We were down by a run and with two innings left we were fast running out of chances to pull out a win.
The afternoon sun was falling yet it managed to draw out beads of sweat that made my nose as wet as a dog’s. I tasted the salty grime that trickled down my face yet I didn’t flinch or wipe it lest I lost my concentration. It was bad enough that the mournful horns of a passing train and its chugging engine that clicked clacked on the tracks drowned out instructions from coaches and teammates alike. But still, batter up.
I didn’t wiggle the bat like some others would as if they dared the pitcher to hurl the ball towards them. I pulled it back slightly above my right shoulder as I dug my feet in the ground in order to draw some power. Home plate was an improvised line in the sand of the newly harvested rice field that served as our playground. It was the same for the other bases and the paths that made up the impromptu diamond yet this represented our noblest of accomplishments in those summer days.
It might have been a sandlot game but the match was for real and for neighborhood bragging rights that lasted all the way to the next summer.
I held the bat as firmly as my small hands could and no, the ball didn’t come at me in slow motion like it did in the movies. It sizzled and bore down on me. In my earlier at-bats, I whiffed and whiffed some more until I struck out swinging both times as my teammates shook their heads at the kid who couldn’t hit a lick. Plus, I was deathly afraid I’d get beaned right between the eyes.
I recovered from my momentary shock and just in the nick to time to put up my bat to defend myself. I had no illusions about crushing the ball to the outfield or the nearby haystack. I was just hoping to make contact and get the ball anywhere past the infield.
Instead, I accidentally bunted it and no one seemed ready for it as it stayed safe instead of rolling out into foul territory. As the shock wore off, I could hear our coach yelling for me to bust my ass down first base.
Maybe everyone was yelling, clapping or cursing but the only sound I heard was the beating of my heart. “Easy pickings,” I thought to myself as I waited for the throw to first that would end the inning.
I may not have been the best hitter on the team but I could run like the wind. I arrived ahead of the ball and the first baseman missed the ball so I motored all the way to second. “Lucky bum,” I once more thought as I held back the smile. I didn’t need to show anything as my grandfather who sat by the bleachers with a stoogie in hand showed all the emotion I needed. I didn’t show any glee because I wanted it to appear as if like I could pull it off all along.
We won that day and the score has been lost to time and faulty memory. But I remember the slap on my back by teammates as we skipped down afterwards to the local convenience store for some ice cream and wafers as we sat on the counter underneath the Lucky Strike sign.
My grandfather plopped down beside me and proudly beamed at me.
He got home from work at 4pm everyday and he’d bring me to the field to play with the neighborhood team. “Experience is the best teacher,” he’d say despite my protestations. Eventually, the fear wore off and I loved every moment of it whether I was hitting or not. On off days, we played catch on the empty field beside the railroad tracks. Later in my adult life, I realized that this was one defining moment in familial relationships when life’s great truths are passed on as easily as the baseball is tossed back and forth while caught by a well-worn mitt.
“Later in my adult life, I realized that this was one defining moment in familial relationships when life’s great truths are passed on as easily as the baseball is tossed back and forth while caught by a well-worn mitt.”
When we were back in his house, he’d pull out those issues of Life magazine and show me pictures of the Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. Mantle, I only learned much later, was only an ornery Oklahoma boy but his chiseled body made me believe that the gods from Olympus had descended from the mountain to play ball among mortal men.
I, we, were the brown brothers who loved the game and played with those gray cotton shirts that read Mobil up front. We played all afternoon long and stank to high heavens that when we got home we were literally scrubbed clean. I had no rubber ducky like Ernie but I had my baseball.
Present Day
As the summer days turned in quickly, I sat down with my son and switched on the TV. It was painful to see the New York Yankees get swept by the Boston Red Sox and I shut off the box feeling somewhat pained.
My son still has his GI Joes and Pokemons but he’s learned to love sports. He loves Arsenal and AC Milan and he did his old man proud when after the Yanks lost their eighth straight to Boston, he asked if I wanted to play catch.
A smile broke the frown on my face as we headed out to the driveway to toss around the baseball. And I went, “You see, son, it’s like this…”
For my granddad and my pop. Happy Father's Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment