Old Habits

Everybody came back to our house after the 4 PM children’s Christmas Eve Mass yesterday for a supper of barley soup and pierogi. When I went out onto the back porch to get Maeve’s highchair, Leo followed along and spotted the bat and wiffle balls. Of course, he asked, “Why can’t we play baseball?” Because we’re three days removed from the shortest day of the year and it’s pitch black outside, that’s why. Not that it mattered to my daughter and grandson Saturday afternoon. The snow was all melted, the ground dry enough. To a veteran of Illinois high-school softball, that plus anything over freezing qualified as “Play Ball!” weather. And they did. Now, not only does Leo like to hit, he wants to pitch, too. That explains the line drive off his cheek. “I was trying to hit fly balls,” the sheepish parent said to me when I brought it up. My daughter just can’t help herself with a bat in her hands. In Bronco Ball, she once hit a pitcher who had to be carried off the field. The next year, the boys on his team pointed out “that girl.” It happened again both in travel ball and fall ball, I think, pitchers on the receiving end of a shot off Clare’s bat. In her defense, I should note she was only practicing good hitting per the beliefs of Bill “Moose” Skowron. We met the Chicagoan and ex-Yankee near-great—who spent parts of four years on the South Side late in his career—at a White Sox convention when Clare was at Elmhurst. After Clare mentioned she played college softball, the man who hit .293 with eight homeruns over the course of eight World Series offered this advice: “Hit the ball up the middle, and don’t worry if you take the f****n’ pitcher’s head off.” Provided the pitcher isn’t your flesh and blood. I’m guessing Clare has one sports-related New Year’s resolution she’s going to work extra hard on.