It
was ten years ago yesterday that Cubs’ catcher Michael Barrett punched A.J.
Pierzynski; A.J. had brushed Barrett on the way back to the dugout after
scoring on a sacrifice fly. I heard
about it on the car radio between games of Clare’s tournament that day.
Travel
ball was still new to us, this dedicating weekend after weekend to our child’s
athletic endeavors. By Sunday night,
Michele and I were always drained. How
did people get used to it? We never did.
Around
the same time A.J. and Barrett were going at it, I was using the men’s room
when another dad from the team took the urinal next to mine. “Good thing your daughter hit that triple,”
he said, staring at the wall. He didn’t
need to add, “Because she made a couple of errors that nearly cost us the
game.”
I’ve thought about
this guy in the ten years since. His
daughter was one of the coach’s favorites, and she wanted to go to school out
East for a sport other than softball. I
wonder how that all worked out, whether there were other men’s room
conversations in the years since. I
don’t know because we switched travel teams in the fall. And that was a good thing.
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