CLAP TRAP

Mumble....mumble....where did he go?  Is there anyone here?  Where's my dinner?

Hand, fingers.  Fingers move.  Movement.  Ball.

The ball sails into the night and disappears like in a bad movie about the game.  

It's my first.  I hit it to the other team's bullpen.  They make a phone call: "Keep the ball OK?  For the kid."  They said they will and now here's a ball.  I don't know if it's THE ball but it's a ball.  And they wrote on it that it's my first.  They asked me what I would do with it.  "Give it to my Dad," I just said.  

Daddy gone now.  Everyone left.  Just me and this room.  I used to play, is that what you asked me?  Remember the man with the glass eye?  I played with him when we were just kids.  We were just kids but I was always the best one.  "Kid will go to the majors," they said.  Back then, one day, the umpire made a call; can't remember what it was.  Strike three I suppose.  Say that's what it was.  Anyway, so he pops the eye out and goes to give it to the ump.  "Here, maybe you could use an extra one."  That was the kind of guy he was.  I remember the eye there in his hand.  White with a red seam on the back.  Maybe it was a weight or something.  To hold it in place.  That's the ball there.  I hit it into the bullpen.  The guys saved it for me.  I gave it to my Dad but he's gone now.  Are we having dinner?

Daddy...ball.  Here Daddy, roll it.  No, I roll.  I roll it.  Daddy catch it.  Daddy.  Catch.

Mommy got me baseball vitamins.  Mommy says I have to be big and strong and take vitamins.  They taste good.  They're baseballs.  The vitamins are baseball shapes.  Some are bats and this one looks like a mitt.  But these are all balls.  This pile is the balls.  These are the bats and these are everything else.  I don't know what this one is.  I'm SORRY Mommy.  I ate them Mommy.  I don't want to throw up.  No Mommy.

It took a long time before I hit another one.  That first ball I carried around with me.  Until I got to see my Dad in Oakland.  Then I gave it to him.  I never saw his tears before but I did then but I shouldn't talk about that.  He wouldn't want me to talk about that.  Can you not write about that?  So I hit two more on the last day of the season.  The same day Alex hit 700.  We lost anyway but I hit two that day. We packed our stuff ourselves the next day and I was home for the winter.  I kept waiting for someone to call.  Finally I called Ted.  Ted's my agent.  He said he would look into it.  Then I got the call from the general manager and they wanted me to go back to Pawtucket.  Then I slipped on the stairs and the ankle was all messed up.  I got back to Pawtucket for a couple of days but then when they wanted to send me down from there I just packed it in.

My boy gave me the ball.  By then he was not hitting much of anything and then before you know it he was done.  I always thought he do better than just a few months in the majors.  Where is that ball?  

It was all I ever wanted.  I remember mostly the feeling of hitting it.  When you really hit it perfectly it's like you don't even feel the ball hitting the bat.  It's like catching a great wave.  Something natural happens.  You can feel the ball collapse around the barrel of the bat.  And then it's like a sling shot.  It's like the ball and then bat are connected and you're just throwing then ball out into the distance.  It just all came together in that moment.  That first time.  I was so excited I started running as fast as I could.  I think I was around 2nd when the ball went into the bullpen.  No one was really cheering because we were away and it was so quiet when I got home.  And then it was over.  Just like that.

I think it's just a ball.  Not sure where he got it from.  Someone said he used to play.  Or maybe it was his son.  Something like that.  I don't think it's anything.  Put it in the box with the other stuff.  I'll take it with me later.  Or you can have it if you want.