Swing of Action, Point of Impact, Field of Response
Lessons from backyard baseball
When I was a kid, we played wiffle ball in my backyard often. That was the first mistake. Our yard wasn't all that big and the woman who lived in the house directly behind us was the elderly manifestation of the “Beast” from The Sandlot. She was too old and far too meek to bark things like “stay off my lawn,” but she had a vicious twitch in her left eye that more than made up for it. With hair and skin to match her transparently pale white gown, she’d loom in the darkness behind her glass door, watching us — a ghostly guardian against all-things-children. It was creepy, to say the least.
One day, we decided to play home run derby with a Nerf ball and an aluminum bat. That was the second mistake. This doesn’t go where you think it might, though. We were smarter than that. Or, so I thought. To ensure that the ball ended up no where near She Who Shall Remain Nameless, we rotated the field 90 degrees counter-clockwise so that it would land in somebody else’s yard. That was the third mistake. Let’s call them strikes.
Our newly situated field gave us endless real estate beyond the fence, but dramatically shrunk the infield and shortened the distance between the pitchers mound (a shoe) and home plate (a frisbee). To compensate for this, we left a tiny space for the catcher between the frisbee and the backstop (a shed).
Everything was going quite well. With the shackles of the Wicked Witch of the East gone, we swung mightily in celebration, without restraint or fear of where the ball might land. One after one, we took turns hopping the fence and playing fetch. Our much more friendly neighbors to the north joined the fun and cheered us on as we found home run asylum on the roof of their garage, our new grandstand. Better on their property than in the land of no return, I’m sure they reasoned.
The sun began to go down and I stepped up to the frisbee, cocky as could be. I was easily triumphing over my less athletic neighborhood friends and the competition had long been decided. At this point, the porch and street lights had come on to light the stadium. This was primetime.
The pitch was on its way and I swung my Easton bat across the plate with such power and grace in anticipation of the longest home run in backyard history.
I heard a loud crack. This one was going to land in my neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor’s yard.
And then I heard a scream. This one was gone!
Or, so I thought.
The scream was not our crowd of friendly neighbors. They had long since dispersed. And the crack was not the bat meeting the ball, as much as my ego desired. It was the catcher, Joey, with bloody hands over his face, letting out the type of murderous scream you only hear in horror movies. Even those who were inside heard it, and they didn't need to see it to know that it was, indeed, a horrific scene.
Within minutes, his mom had arrived from the other end of the street. Visibly frightened, this woman who typically would be clocking-in her night shift at this hour — a nurse at the local hospital — calmed her son enough to remove his trembling hands from his face. None of us could see it clearly, but I’m not sure we wanted to. As she turned and hurried him to the car to rush him to the emergency room, I was already making my way back to the frisbee with rivaling haste.
My mom questioned me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to play baseball.” I said assuredly.
Well, I was wrong. I wasn't going to be playing anymore baseball. At least not on that night. And certainly not by my mother’s assertion. Our game, one of the best times ever had in that backyard, was officially over.
I was distraught.
It wasn't my fault, I pouted. His dumb ass shouldn't have gotten that close to the bat, I reasoned. Neither of which were necessarily untrue.
But the look I got in response is one that I’ll never forget. It was the piercing look of a parent who for a moment doesn't quite recognize the child they thought they raised.
A half-inch lower with the barrel of the bat and this is the story about how I gave my friend a glass eye. A half-inch higher and this about how I cracked his skull. A few more half-inches over and maybe this is the story about how I gave him permanent brain damage, or worse. Fortunately, it’s none of that. Instead, it is the story about how in the midst of that horrifying scream, and the terrifying uncertainty that followed it, all I could think about was how I could get back to the plate for another round.
I couldn't even say “sorry.”
And I didn't — not until my mother made me. And I don’t remember if it was before he left for the emergency room or after he came back with quite a few stitches above his eye.
It’s weird how certain childhood events stay in our minds forever while others have long drifted beyond the margins of our memories. I think of that day often, even if Joey and everyone else had forgotten it by the time the wound had healed. It is an otherwise lighthearted tale that has become a lens through which I see my relationship with the World and those I share it with.
When confronted with the hurt, pain, and serious dangers that face others as a result of actions that are otherwise pleasurable to us, we are inclined to respond like I did that day. We turn our eyes or rush to distance ourselves, even when the role that we have played in it is quite clear. We are hesitant to accept any suggestion that our joy, satisfaction, or genuine comfort can, in fact, be the source of serious harm for somebody else.
Sometimes, we do acknowledge our actions and their harmful impact. Sometimes, we choose to do something about it. And sometimes, we choose to do nothing at all.
It would seem that the latter response occupies the deepest, darkest space in our humanity; knowing that our actions are harmful to others, yet choosing to do nothing, or worse, continue doing them anyway. At that point, our conscious decision becomes much more detrimental than the act could ever be on its own.
But that deepest space is reserved for a much darker response. Sometimes we take it a step further. Sometimes we go as far as convince others that the harm simply does not exist, let alone in concert with any one person’s actions — certainly not our own. We’ll do this until we’ve convinced ourselves of it. We’ll do this to the point of utter delusion.
Examples of how we see and respond to harm are everywhere, from our much more global and seemingly abstract relationships like climate and capitalism; to our most intimate relationships in family, friendship, and romance. It’s evident in our beliefs, our politics, and even our passions. It is in our everyday decisions, what we do and don’t do, what’s wrong or right. We see harm mostly when we want to see it, and almost certainly when it is our own that we can attribute to somebody else.
Maybe we’re just numb — in pure disbelief that we’re capable of inflicting a harm onto others like or beyond any that we have ever felt ourselves. In that moment, in that backyard, I was numb. Some might call it shock — a natural response, particularly for a child. I was in the middle of a dreadful and bloody scene that I was unable to reconcile with the joyful events leading up to it.
That’s one way to look it — one way that is particularly favorable towards me. It’s also partially true. But even my much younger and more naive self would not accept that. If there was shock, it was the shock that our competition had come to an abrupt end.
In fact, you could argue that it really wasn't a competition at all. The neighbors weren't into sports, certainly not baseball. They weren't particularly athletic and the “game” was mostly me just hitting balls and enjoying myself while they spectated, struggled, and did the things necessary (pitch, catch, fetch) to make the experience much more enjoyable for me. I hope that image is as familiar as I intended it to be.
My primetime, my selfish fun, and my desire for more of it had completely blinded me to the real danger of what had just occurred. And maybe if I took a few more swings, I could ignore the fact that it was my swing — and nobody else’s — that busted a brow and brought the game to a halt in the first place.
But that’s probably not enough to explain it either. There was more to it.
The truth is, I didn’t too much care for Joey back then anyway. He was annoying and one time he ate all of my cheddar popcorn. He did dumb shit like get too close to metal bats while they were being swung. That should reveal enough. My judgment of the situation was almost exclusively dependent on my opinions about him. It was easy to attribute blame to him because, well, it was him. And my lack of compassion was due in part to the fact that I just didn’t care all that much. I certainly wouldn’t have reacted so nonchalantly towards somebody else, like say, my cousin.
There were many lessons that day. I still think Joey shouldn’t have been that close to the bat and I don’t quite remember how he ended up there in the first place. I don’t remember if or why he suddenly decided to play catcher. We had gone most of the game without one. Maybe he wasn't aware of the risk. Maybe he was and chose to do it anyway. Maybe he just wanted to be a part. Or maybe, he sought to enhance the experience for all of us, including me.
My much older self knows that it was an accident, albeit an avoidable one. I know that we shouldn't have been playing wiffle ball with a metal bat, especially without helmets. And I shouldn't have been so full of myself that I couldn't see that there was clearly somebody in the path of that bat.
I know, that in that moment, it really didn’t matter whose fault it was. I didn’t have to see the gash to know that there was blood. And I didn’t even need to see the blood to know that something was awry. It didn’t matter who was lying on the ground or what they did. He was hurt. Seriously hurt. And he deserved a little more compassion than what I gave.
I’m not sure we ever played home run derby, or any kind of baseball in my backyard, ever again. The disappointment of having to quit our game will never quite amount to the pain of a barrel of a bat to your face. But I know that one person’s pain can quickly become everybody’s pain. Sometimes we get a chance to stop the bleeding before it’s too late. But it won’t quite matter who is responsible if it ends the game for all of us. That seems to be the greatest lesson we all have to learn.
One of #6to26. The first entry in a series of six stories, published leading up to my 26th birthday.