Pitchers and Hitters

I was picking up Michele from the train last night, which involves side streets, stop signs and a park; the all-day rain was just a mid-November bonus.  At a stop sign by Proksa Park (we in Berwyn are proud of our Bohemian forebears), I happened to see three people playing long toss, two men and a teenaged girl.  Father and coach with daughter, I thought, and at least two of them serious about her craft.

“Pitcher,” Clare said later over the phone when I told her about it, without a whole lot of respect in her voice.  My daughter still thinks like a hitter and probably imagined herself trying to hit under similar conditions—wet and cold on a field with so-so lighting.  She pretty much did once back in 2011, as a freshman at Elmhurst.  The Bluejays were playing Judson University out by the Fox River, a doubleheader that started after 5PM in early April with the temperature a brisk 40 degrees.  I—and everything else—went down from there.

The Chicago Bandits used to play at Judson, so the lighting was decent.  In the first inning, Clare lined a ball to dead center that couldn’t have gotten more than fifteen feet off the ground.  Anywhere else and she has a record-breaking sixth homerun, but not at Judson, where center was 230 feet from the plate.  The ball hit the fence on the fly, and Clare had to be satisfied with a double.  That was the highlight against two losses out in the middle of nowhere on a rain-soaked field (Clare nearly drowned venturing into foul territory in right, I kid you not).  The parking lot was so dark I almost couldn’t find my car.  Back home, I spent a good twenty minutes under hot water in the shower before the shakes let up.

Come to think of it, if I see that girl again on my way to the train, I should warn her about what she could be getting herself into.  And the two guys with her.