Baseball Stories (13)

 . . . it was somewhere between the on-deck circle and the batting box that it occurred to him how ordinary life had become lately.  It wasn't boring or dissatisfying, just ordinary.  A kind of graceful coexistence.  There had come to him a simple pleasure in just going through the simplest motions of life.  Suiting up.  Infield practice.  Chatting with the fans.  Showering after the game.  Whistling a favorite tune on his way home.

Even the grass was taking on a new elegance.  He marveled at how perfectly the grass performed its simple act of being.  Standing at attention, ready to serve at a moment's notice.  How the chalk, yes even the chalk for heaven's sake, performed its ordinary function with such grace.  Just peacefully lying there with no pretense, no need to hurry, to create, to justify its existence.  For in being, it was just as it should be.  In rhythm.  Of service.  Perfection personified.

It was after the second called strike that he finally noticed the coach's frantic gestures to return to the task at hand.  Looking toward the mound, the third pitch was already heading toward home plate as he focused on what was his to do.  Without time to think he brought his bat around, smoothly and without hesitation, so as to just meet the ball.   His effortless act sends the ball toward left center, a solid single by anyone's standard.  But on this day a northwest wind whips through an open exit, passes across home plate and chases the ball on its lofty trajectory which ends just over the outstretched glove of the outfielder and the top of the home run fence.

"Now, that's perfect !" shouts the coach as he marks one down for the home team.

A hot dog sells for a dollar.  The phone rings in the front office.  A three year old daughter attending her first game laughs as Dad gives her the game ball . . .