Machine Pitch Baseball Will Always Lead to Chili’s

It’s 87 degrees and every parent is on their phones, well everyone except for me. I am holding a camcorder. A device that’s sole purpose is to be seen in use by me, so that I may justify purchasing it for the family two Christmases ago. I have just realized that the cap was on the lens for the first 20 minutes, which is a shame considering none of this footage will ever be unearthed.

Have you ever felt the piercing dullness of a nine year old’s baseball game? I have sat through more insurance seminars then the guy from the Farmers Commercials, and nothing can compare to the overwhelming tedium that is machine pitch baseball. I envy the machine tasked with hurling miniature baseballs at disinterested kids. This seems preferable to my task: recording my unmotivated and unathletic son Brandon play a sport that I would never watch on television.

Don’t choke up on the bat too much. Is that the swing the coach taught you? Christ, Brandon, you wonder why you never play? It’s the same as not doing your math homework, if you don't practice you don't play well. Strike 3 and Brandon is out - I somehow resent him for this. Resent him despite being the genetic offspring of two adults who even under the most charitable definitions would never have been considered athletes; despite my own ambivalence towards the sport; despite Brandon’s begging me to let him try golf instead. Golf is expensive and far. Baseball is cheap and Right Down The Block. The splenetic pangs that I was feeling towards my son are interrupted by a rush of self loathing. Don't choke up on the bat too much. Was this really something I have shouted at my son? A bullshit Dad Aphorism yelled in our lawn, infinite wisdom imparted on an ungrateful disciple.

I zoom in with the camcorder, Brandon shuffles his feet in the dugout. I know where he’d rather be - sitting in a chair, staring at a screen. It’s always the same: iPad at the dinner table, minecraft in the den, iPhone in the car- my son’s face was generally lit up by a something, animated by devices far more interesting then me. For a while I stood in opposition. No iPad at dinner. Brandon it’s family time right now. Jesus, Brandon, put your phone away we are at CHURCH. After a while though, I started to notice a growing association between his electronic usage and silence. A silence that became rarer and rarer as he and his sister found more and more things to put the other on trial for. So, I relented. iPad’s are fine at the dinner table, just as long as I don’t have to hear you and your sister argue about who gets to sit in the front seat tomorrow.

The game is over. I shut off my camera and head to the car. Another day archived by me, never to be downloaded, uploaded, or watched. I anticipate one day when I am old and Everything Hurts, I will want to indulge myself in the nostalgia that these videos will portend. And I am fearful that all I will find is a dutiful vapid existence. Uhhhhh, what a meaningless phrase I just thought up, ‘dutiful vapid existence’. I lack the literary faculties to describe my life. I was going to be a Writer before the exciting world of reverse mortgages came calling. In truth, I was about as close to being a writer as Brandon was to pitching for the Orioles.

Brandon taps on the window. He’s a respite from my self pity.

Good Game.

Thanks, I almost had a hit.

Just got to keep practicing, son.

I'm pretty hungry. Dad, can we get drive-thru?

How about Chili’s? I will let you drink soda, and if the food takes a while, you can play Minecraft. If there’s an iPad version. We’ll look into it.