The Day We've All Been Waiting For

Now is the time for Society to take note of Young Daniel's great milestones in baseball history.

On Saturday, June 1, 2013, at approximately 3:30 Eastern Daylight Savings time, Daniel scored a home run apparently the only one in his game.  I think one of the main reasons why he got a home run was because he was determined to keep running.  He hit the ball hard and far - and low, which prevent it from being caught - but many of the boys would have settled for a Single.  To be brutally honest, the outfield wasn't that great (the younger kids seem particularly "challenged" with the outfield and and with throwing pitches within a yard or so of the bat), and I suspect this vulnerability could have been exploited by other batters at other times, but Daniel had a bit more determination, and some hint of mischief, which probably accounted for his distinction.

But much more important than the home run itself, for Daniel, was his acquisition of "The Game Ball."  The game ball is an informal award bestowed by the coaches on a Player of Distinction, in the dugout, at the end of each game.  It seems that it is one of the balls used in the game itself, but more significantly, for Daniel, it is the honor which gives special recognition to one and only one teammate for the entirety of the game.  In other words, far from merely "winning the game," in the vulgar sense of scoring more points than the other team, this honor confers that one boy effectively "won the game" - won the game as a whole  - for himself, even at the expense of his own teammates.  This is an especially cherished institution, I think, because in Daniel's "Farm Team" league  - of 6- and 7-year-olds  - they don't officially keep score or declare winning teams, so this is the one way you can establish that one very lucky, very smart, very athletic, very wonderful boy "won" the game in a superlative sense.  My strong suspicion is that the other team had a parallel "winner," but of course Daniel knows nothing of that random pretender to the title, and I don't think we're going to explore that prospect any further.

The Game Ball has been Daniel's preoccupation for this whole season.  It seemed like he would assess the quality of the game overall based on whether or not he got The Game Ball.  By that singular criterion, Saturday's game was extremely good.

And now for the thing that really has meaning for me, the "other" Daniel, in spite of my mild distaste for sports "culture" overall:    in an email sent by the coach(es)  of Daniel's team, The Cardinals, to the parents after the game, he-or-they explicitly mentioned how exemplary Daniel was - and apparently generally is - in terms of sportsmanship.  I don't entirely understand what this means, but apparently Daniel has the best "dugout etiquette" of his entire team.  Of course, I don't see what happens in the dugout; parents don't, in general, because they tend to hunker down on the cozy aluminum bleachers during the game.  In my unique case, I wasn't on the bleachers with them, but literally crouching in the shadow of the dugout itself, sheltering my sorry, pink-going-on-red, super-duper-Celtic skin and somewhat hair-free scalp from the particularly brutal sun, in the unseasonal-for-Spring 90-something-degree weather.  So I was better poised than the other parents to know what was going on in the dugout, but I still couldn't see what they were doing, or how Daniel was behaving.  But I did notice that, when given the queue by the she-coach a.k.a. photographer - probably the wife of one of the coaches - Daniel got into position along the fence at the edge of the dugout space facing the field, grabbing the cross-bar from much the way a ballerina might (but don't tell him that!), limbering up, stretching his little legs, one at a time, in his spiffy grey baseball pants, getting ready to bat exactly as they probably do (not that I would know) in the big leagues.

But I think that kind of "being in the moment" is more symptomatic than the core behavior that won him the Game Ball.  I suspect what they're implying is that Danielito is the most supportive of the other players, cheering and encouraging, etc.

Outside of the house, we hear endless stories from his teachers, parents, "colleagues," bus driver, about how delightful he is - how tremendously nice and sweet and upbeat and thoughtful.  Too many stories for some kind of mistaken identity or fluke.  Last year, at the end of the baseball season, when each boy was given a trophy and a special phrase of recognition, Daniel's was "Best Smile."

So I'm very happy that he's a good citizen, a sunny countenance, a friend to all.  The fact that his Id seems to reign supreme much of the time at home has apparently no bearing on his relationship with The World At Large.

So Saturday was a great day - "my lucky day," as Daniel observed in the car, both because he won the game ball, and because I bought him two toys at the flea market and he got to jump in the bounce houses at a festival that we attended.

For the record:  June 1, 2013