The Close-Eyed Kid

This morning, while reading a story based on youth sports teams, I was reminded of the time we enrolled the boys in a summer t-ball youth sports group.

Now, neither of my boys were ever going to make any real waves in sports with any of my input, as I’ve never been much of a sport minded person anyway. But, had they shown any real interest I would have supported them wholeheartedly just as I had done when Andres joined the high school football and wrestling teams in his teen years.

When they joined the t-ball teams they were both very young, about 6 and 7 years, I believe. They were on the same team, and while Andres seemed to be getting the gist of hitting a ball atop the T, Alex had a heck of a time attempting to strike the ball and instead hitting the post section of the T every time.

It became the goal of Alex’s coach to see him through to getting that hit right and sending the ball soaring so Alex could run through the bases to victory! Well, every week Alex showed up to play, and every week he’d close his eyes and swing the bat, and grand slam the poor post of the T.

He was a serious kid. His face was always in a furrowed brow. Intense kid. Thinking too much, perhaps? I don’t know. But, his puffy cheeks and big brown eyes with long eyelashes made him hard to take seriously when he claimed how hard he was going to hit that ball, that is, once he’d finally actually hit it.

The coach worked with Alex a little at practice but had a whole team to coach, so it wasn’t much. We worked with him at home, too. But, eyes closed while swinging, the T took more bat than the ball atop of it. Coach would tell us after every game, “Boy, I can’t wait till he finally hits that ball”.

At close to the end of the season we had a game where the coach was going to be out of town and his assistant coach was heading the team. I said sarcastically to Liz, “Watch Alex hit the ball this time, now that coach is out of town.” She laughed and agreed.

The game was on, and Alex was up to bat. There he stood, uniform as clean as when it came to him. Cap on, a little askew. Big and beautiful furrowed brow over his intense looking eyes. He holds the bat up like it’s more of a nuisance than a help, and like every other attempt, eyes closed, full swing but this time “crack” the ball goes low, down center past the pitcher and into the outfield. Since none of the other team’s players expected it to go anywhere, they were all caught off guard when it did!

There Alex stood, eyes open. In complete shock at the realization that he hit the ball! Standing there he had no idea what to do now, until he finally came back to earth and heard me (and all the other parents and team mates) shouting to “run, Alex, run!”.

He was on auto pilot, it seemed, as he turned to the direction of first base and began to run! Again, so surprised at his own accomplishment that he took off running, but carried the bat along with him. Once the other players in the outfield regained their senses they quickly scooped the ball up and threw it to first, where he was called ‘Out!’.

Alex turned around to face the team to return to the dugout from first base, but instead of the face of a player being tagged out at first and presenting us with his trademark furrowed brow and intense eyes, he had the biggest smile on his face as he ran back to the dugout shouting, “I hit the ball! I hit the ball!”, right before I scooped him up into a big hug while spinning him around and congratulating him. All of his team mates came out to pat him on the back with congrats on hitting the ball.

We called the coach on our cell phone to tell him what had happened and he was so excited (yet bummed at the same time) that he wasn’t there to witness it and join in on the excitement.

At the end of the season we all met at a local pizza diner to have pizza and enjoy the coaches farewell speech as he handed out trophies and certificates to various players offering quick tips to each one to better improve their game. When it came to Alex, Alex ran to him as he scooped him up to place him on his knee, and presented him with a “most improved player” certificate and a tip to maybe start opening his eyes while swinging.

Alex was thrilled!

This memory came out of nowhere this morning, triggered by a story on my iPhone about a company created to rent sporting equipment and uniforms for kids, like Netflix used to do with dvds. Every word in this story is true and was written just as it had happened.

You never know when something is going to take you to a place from not that long ago. Yes, I shed a tear or two while writing this, but I shed more smiles than tears thinking about Alex’s furrowed brow and puffy cheeks which used to be displayed on his face ever so permanently in his youth. You couldn’t help but smile at him, scoop him up and give him a big hug as he smiled and hugged you right back.

I sure miss you, Alex. 💜💜