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Father’s Day

Playoff game, two outs, I’m in left field. The best player in the whole Midget League is at the plate. Runners on second and third. If we get him out, we win. If he gets a hit, we lose. He swings and hits the ball so high it looks like a star. It starts coming down. Right at me.

One of my earliest memories of my dad is him throwing me a baseball. We weren’t having a catch, exactly. I could catch the ball on my glove side, but not backhanded. There was a chain-link fence between our front yard and the kindergarten next door. My dad would throw again and again to my backhand side. I’d miss it, and it would roll to the fence. I’d go get it and throw it back. He’d throw it again. It would roll to the fence.

A lot of times he would still be in his work clothes. He ran the machinery at a seafood processing plant, and he would come home with grease on his pants and scabs on his knuckles. He must have been tired. Of course, I didn’t know and didn’t care. My daddy was home and I wanted to play ball.