Like Old Times

Clare and I went hitting at Stella’s yesterday, and it seemed like old times.  All of the garage doors fronting the batting cages were open for the warm August breeze to come in.  Otherwise, chills might’ve run up and down my back.

Clare has been avoiding Stella’s all summer.  Valpo is where she has to be, and hitting is a part of where she was.  But, still, how do you walk away from a gift like that?  I saw it for the first time when my daughter was four, and that talent, that drive to the ball, has only gotten stronger with each passing year.  Finally, the pull to go back and do that thing that she did so well got the better of the both of us.  Thank God.

Clare was worried her timing would be all off.  She started off bunting a few pitches at 70 mph, then went to work.  My child has quick hands to go with a nice compact swing.  Yes, the ball explodes off her bat.  Ping!  Whack!  Crack!  Take your pick of sound effects to go with these new-age bats.

It happened at 80, which really isn’t 80 because the machines are a lot closer than 60 feet, 6 inches.  Clare drove a ball through the netting against one of the yellow corrugated plastic panels up by the roof; from the sound of the impact, the panel should’ve cracked, and maybe it did.  At the end of 12 tokens and 120 swings, I wrapped my arms around a pair of sweating, triumphant shoulders and said the obvious, “You have got to keep hitting.”  This music with a bat belongs to summer, this one and the next and the….