Generous Orthodoxy
My Grandfather, we called him “papa,” played three years of minor league baseball from 1955 to 1958. He was 19 years old when he played his first professional baseball game for the Tucson Cowboys. Papa was a pitcher who showed promise his first year with a .500 record. The next year his performance severely decline due to an injury. Papa, a native Californian, took 1957 off from baseball, and worked the farm. The next year, a Milwaukee Brave scout showed up at my grandparents home to watch papa pitch. It was a rainy day, drizzling when the scout found papa working in the yard, mud blotching his boots. The scout asked if Papa wanted to go inside to change shoes before he threw. He declined and threw 88 miles per hour in boots while standing in the mud. In 1958. He was signed by the organization and traveled between Salinas, California and Yakima, Washington with the Braves class C and B affiliates. On a plane ride back from Yakima Papa says Jesus came to him and told him his calling was to serve his lord and savior Jesus Christ. He became a preacher and did this for over 50 years. For the record, my father contends the Jesus revelation was just a story Papa used for church sermons. In reality a come backer smashed into my Papa’s throwing arm during that game in Yakima, shattering his elbow and ending his career. Into his 70’s you could see the wide scar running from his lower tricep to the bottom of his elbow.
My father Steve Barton, is the youngest of three children. His sister was not much into sports growing up, and his older brother was a large wide boy, more of a football player. He had an athletic build and his status as the baby of the family fueled his drive to compete. My dad was drafted in the 52nd round of the 1985 MLB draft straight out of high school. He moved on to play two years of junior college ball, after which he was taken in 18th round of ’87 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. He was 20 years old and had a good offer on the table to play the sport he loved for a living. But the Phillies didn’t know their 18th round pick was in California, receiving a new and risky surgical procedure called ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, or Tommy John Surgery. Like father, like son, the elbow scar of baseball was inherited by my dad. My father took a redshirt at Oral Roberts University to recover from his surgery, and the next year pitched 12 games before the program was shut down due to a campus scandal. After resting a year and only seeing limited time on the mound the following year he’d fallen off the radar of the previously interested scouts. He played one more year at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He was never drafted again. My father got his masters in education administration and began coaching high school baseball.
Then there is me. I spent much of my formative years around the ballpark. Watching my dad coach was one of the coolest things I’ve seen. All the older kids listened to him. In his signature wind pants and pullover he paced the dugout with a certain anxious excitement. He laughed a lot with his players, and also wasn’t shy to yell a lot too. Before a rule that stated a coach must be suspended for a game after getting ejected, my dad was tossed often. Peering at him through the chainlink fence I thought he was a super hero taking on the bad guys(usually umpires). My parents divorced when I was five, which only mythologized my dad more. In kindergarten we received an assignment asking us what we wanted to be when we grew up. A lot of kids said sports stars, even more wanted to be power rangers, but I wanted to be a baseball coach.
I started playing as soon as I could hold a bat. I played t-ball with the four and five year olds from two to four years then moved on to coach pitch when I was five. In a league game at that time we were playing against the best team in the league, The All-Stars. They were a traveling team who played tournaments on the weekends. I don’t remember much about that game against The All-Stars. I know I played catcher. I know I had to jump to catch a ball at the plate and tag a kid out. I know I impressed someone. My dad ask me the next day after getting off the phone if I wanted to play with The All-Stars. I told him yes even though I didn’t know what that meant. However, I knew it made him happy.
I continued to play on weekend tournament teams until I reached high school. Every spring and summer was spent packing up into the car and driving to some town in Oklahoma or West Arkansas, even to North Texas. We did all of this for baseball but that is not what stuck with me. The time spent with my brother, sister, mother and step-mom is priceless. We talked so much on those care rides, or at the nearest chain restaurant in between games with my uniform dirty from earlier in the day(Too often we’d play a 9:30 game then not play again until 6 or 7). I have great friends to this day I started playing ball with when I was six. Those friendships were built in the dugouts and in the hotels, which are the coolest thing when you are a kid. I don’t remember many of the games I played at that age. I didn’t love the game yet.
My senior year of high school was the best of my playing career. I threw harder than I ever had. I had command of three off speed pitches too: A sinking-cutting change up(I prefer the circle change), a “get me over” 12–6 curveball, and a deceiving slider. I was our number one pitcher. When I wasn’t on the mound I was asked to be utility. I learned to play middle infield, and outfield. We had new coaches who created a culture. We did everything with purpose, we had a style of play. It was exciting to play the game for the first time in a long time for me. Mid-way through the year I started hitting well. It was coming together for me in a way I’d never experienced. The payoff was exhilarating, constant adrenaline fed by competition and accomplishment. The playoffs began and I started the game on the mound. It was May 1st but it felt like February 1st. A very cold and rainy game. I allowed two hits and one run, with four K’s through three innings. We were up 5–1 when the rain really moved in and it was decided we would finish the game the next day. I was unable to extend my arm the next day. Something was tight in my elbow. I was unable to continue the game the next day. We lost that game and the next game after that. My senior season was over. I cried a lot in the team huddle we assumed after that game. Not only did I cry on the field but I also shed a few tears on the bus home too.
I never thought I’d be a great baseball player. I held no goals to get drafted or even to play in college, but I love the game of baseball. It gave me so much personally on and off the field. My family spent so much time watching me play baseball, believing in me while cheering me on. The friendships I made traveling have lasted this long and don’t I see why they would ever end. I don’t want to have a child soon, but I gleefully look forward to dragging my own kid around from ballpark to ballpark and cheering.
I didn’t love the game until I was 17 years old, and didn’t appreciate it as I do until much recently. As a kid, I played because it made my dad happy, and it made my family whole. My mom and my dad were at all my games, they never split duty. I was never bad at the sport, but certainly wasn’t the best on the team. I played the game of my forefathers, but avoided the let down and elbow scars. It was a generous orthodoxy I prescribed to that grew into my love for America’s game.
