A Level Field

The sun sat high in the left field sky, above and beyond the elevated tennis courts that provided a home run fence too high and distant for any of us to clear.  The little tennis players up there patted the ball back and forth, unafraid of being hit by one of us.  They were more likely to disrupt our game with a sideways lob than we were to interrupt them with a mighty blast.  Such a lob, in fact, might roll all the way across, or down, our field, because our field was, well, tilted —it had been cut into the side of a steep hill that once ran gradually from the tennis courts into the lake but now had been leveled, almost, to form a playing field atop a plateau that ended suddenly, plunging cliff-like just beyond the right field foul line.  The first baseman and the right fielder had to be careful.  Should they pursue a foul ball too aggressively, they could run through the descension point and find themselves flying through the air, as though they had run off the edge of the horizon, until gravity re-captured them and sent them tumbling down the hill toward the swimsuit changing room and the docks, unharmed, most likely, though two baseball teams and associated spectators would be laughing at them as they made the long trek back up the hill to re-enter the field of play.

But that was not my problem; I was too short to play first base and too good a fielder to be stuck in right.  I sometimes pitched (my arm was weak but accurate), and I sometimes played shortstop, but on this day we were up against our chief rivals, the boys of Camp Onalimb, and this was the final game of our heretofore undefeated season.  If we won, we would be heroes, our names memorialized on a fake deerskin banner that would hang in the halls for hundreds of years.  On such an occasion, our coach couldn’t trust anyone but me behind the plate.  Though not a natural catcher (a catcher should be stout, to present a good target, to knock down bad pitches with his girth, and to block the plate when opposing runners attempted to score while the ball was coming in from left field), I was willing to sacrifice what body I had for the cause.  In games past, I had blocked errant pitches with my scrawny chest and stomach, my knees, shins, and elbows.  I had taken foul balls off the facemask without flinching, and I had stood stubbornly in front of home plate when opposing players came in from third, whether or not the play looked to be close.

Now I crouched behind the plate in my catcher’s mask and gave our pitcher the sign.  One finger.  That meant, throw a strike.  It was the only sign we had.  Our pitcher had no curve ball, and the change-up made no sense, unless we wanted to lose on purpose.  One finger.  Throw it in here, man, as hard as you can.  He never shook me off.  After a few innings, I stopped giving him the sign.  I figured he knew what I wanted.  A strike!  And he was throwing them.  He only walked two batters.  Of course, I gave him a good target.  Some catchers barely held the glove open.  They couldn’t be bothered.  It was the pitcher’s job to throw strikes, his job to catch it, and he didn’t see the point of opening his glove until the time came to catch the ball.  But I tried to help my pitcher any way I could, and so I held my circular mitt open as far as it would go and I placed it right behind the center of the plate, thigh high on the batter.  My big white buck teeth helped too.  I raised my chin up to the top of the glove and I smiled so the pitcher could see my teeth through the iron mask that covered my face.  They were like a beacon, a shining light right over the target.  A young pitcher’s concentration can waver.  My teeth helped bring focus.  Throw it here!  Aim for the light!

But the opposition that day had an advantage.  Their pitcher was bigger than ours, and he threw harder.  We couldn’t hit him.  Our pitcher ran into trouble in the third when a small, blond kid from Camp Onalimb stroked the ball up the middle for a single.  Then, after a strikeout, a burly, curly haired boy sliced one to right field.  It was not an impressive hit, but it was well placed, half way between the first baseman and the right fielder, near the foul line, and drifting right.  On a level playing field, our fielder would have run in, picked up the ball, and fired to second base, holding the batter to a single.   But the spin on the ball combined with the slope of the field made our fielder’s assignment considerably more difficult.  It was, in part, his own fault.  He should have seen what was coming and sprinted for all he was worth to the ball, but instead he loped in, as if in control of the situation, only to see the ball slide to the edge of the steep slope and pick up speed on its way down.  Soon the ball hit the wooden steps leading to the lake, where it would have gotten wet had it not taken a last minute sideways bounce; it came to rest on the rocky beach not three feet from the water.  By the time our man retrieved the ball, the burly batter had rumbled around the bases.  But then the umpire saved us -- he called a ground rule double.  It was the proper judgment, in my opinion, and I cheered and pumped my fist along with my teammates when the umpire pointed to the burly boy on the bench and ordered him back to second base along with the small boy ahead of him who had to return to third.  But the next batter hit a sharp grounder to my tent mate and current best friend, our third baseman, Bobby.  Now, I considered Bobby one of the best athletes on our team, but his mind had a tendency to wander, and the recent delay of the game might have interrupted his concentration.  I don’t believe he was paying as close attention as he should have been.  He reacted slowly at first, then lunged for the ball, and blocked it, but then he kicked it into foul territory.  By the time he retrieved it, two runs had scored, and Bobby’s temperamental pounding of his glove into the ground did nothing to undo the damage.

When the bottom of the sixth and final inning came, we were down, 2-1.  I was shedding my catcher’s gear for the final time when our leadoff man doubled into right center, and I stood up and cheered with one shin pad on and one off.  Barring a double play, I would now hit in the inning, so I grabbed my bat and rubbed my hands over the handle.  I loved that bat like a young girl loved her horse, like a teenage boy loved his hot rod, like a mother loved her baby.  It felt good in my hands, and it had felt good in bed the night before when I wrapped my legs around it.  After our next batter grounded out to second, moving our runner to third, I stepped into the on-deck circle and took my practice swings.  The bat felt light, but solid, which meant I was possessed of all my strength and I was destined, I felt, to drive in the tying or winning run.  True, only God knew the fate of my upcoming at bat, but the signs were good.  When our next batter walked, it became clear that everything had been set up for me to be the hero.  I stepped to the plate and into my destiny, fully conscious of the magnitude of the situation.  I took a ball, outside, wishing only that the umpire had yelled it out, “BALL,” instead of saying it in a normal voice as though it wasn’t a matter of extreme importance.  Then another outside pitch, but this one crossed the corner of the plate, according to the umpire, whose “STRIKE” seemed considerably more forceful to me than his “BALL” had been.  So be it.  I would wait for my pitch, then trust my swing and my bat to do the job.  The beefy pitcher had begun to tire.  I could see in his face that he wished the game was over.  He was afraid of me and my bat, and rightly so.  This time the pitch came on the inside half of the plate . . .  I swung, and, boom … I hardly felt the impact of the ball -- I hit it so squarely it seemed to have no weight when it met my bat, and as I completed my swing I saw the ball fly on a line to deep left field.  As I ran toward first base, I watched the left fielder step in, and I knew I had at least a double, as the ball was sailing over his head.  But then he reversed direction, leaped as high as he could (three inches), raised his glove in the air as he fell over backwards and made the luckiest catch of his life.  Our man on third should have tagged up and scored the tying run, but he too thought the ball was going over the fielder’s head, and he had run all the way home and was walking to our bench.  The left fielder stood up and raised the ball above his head so everyone could see he had it, his huge grin telling us that no one was more surprised than he was that he made the catch.  But his teammates were yelling at him to throw the ball to third base, as our team was yelling at our runner to return from where he had come.  Our man ran from our bench across the field toward third base -- it was a close play, but the throw beat him; he got doubled up, and the game was over.  We were done, finished.  Losers.

I stood on first base as the boys from Onalimb jumped up and down and hugged and ran off the field.  I walked, sullenly, over the grass infield and picked up my bat, of which I was still fond.  The bat had not let me down.  My timing had been perfect and the solid feel of bat on weightless ball sublime.  I simply didn’t have enough power in my body to put the ball so far over the fielder’s head that he couldn’t track it.  I looked around.  My teammates had already dispersed, except for the few good kids who were helping put away the equipment, and I couldn’t help but contrast the current scene to what would have ensued had the lucky fielder not caught my ball.

Several days later, my depression had not dissipated but had grown steadily worse, and I realized that my concerns went deeper than mere regret over a lost game.  I objected to the randomness of the event.  Sheer luck had intervened and ruined the day.  If my ball had gone five feet to the left or right, we would have won; or if we had been playing on a level field, my blast to left would not have had to travel uphill, and the extra few inches loft would have put the ball over the fielder’s head.  Or if I hadn’t hit the ball quite so well, it would have fallen in for a single, or if I had hit it lower, on the ground, but still hard, it would have gone between the third baseman and shortstop, again for a game tying single.  Heck, I could have hit a soft grounder to the third basemen, and he probably would have thrown it over the first baseman’s head, where it would have run downhill to the lake as I took second base.  I had done my part; I had hit the ball as well as I could, but sheer chance robbed me of my glory.  And had the opposition produced their two runs without the assistance of Lady Luck?  No, their key hit was a spinning bloop into right field that made its way to the unnatural slope and from there down to the water’s edge.  Might as well have been playing pinball.  We were at the mercy of God, or fate, or sheer chance, and yet I couldn’t help basing my mood and my self-esteem on the outcome, as though my worth as an individual depended on the bounce of a ball.  I was a fool, I knew I was a fool, but I could not help it - I was overcome with self-doubt and despair.

It was obvious now that I had been wrong to sleep with my bat that summer and to devote my life to the game of baseball.  I had been kidding myself; I was not an exceptional player; I was not destined to achieve extraordinary success.  I would never be a leader, independent, in control of my own life, cool, hip, a hero.  I belonged on the other side of the fence, the crowded side, where the ugly, the weak, the dumb, the hard working anonymous drones lived their sorry lives and commiserated with one another and fostered their envy of the few, those who had escaped into the realm of the charmed and chosen.

But the following week, summer camp’s finale, I found my redemption in a regional tennis tournament where the best players from six camps battled each other.  I had been playing almost as much tennis as I did baseball, not because I liked it as much, but because it was easier to find a tennis partner than to organize a baseball practice.  And it did involve hitting a ball and competing in a real game.  It was baby baseball but still fun and rewarding.  And then, without having obsessed over it, without having made it a goal, without investing my self-image in the outcome, my game ascended during my first match to a new level, and then to another, and another – in short, I won the tournament – I was the best player not just in my camp but in all the camps.

I lay in bed that night under the wool blanket my mother had packed for me, unable to sleep, as I pondered the lessons the summer had brought me.  Baseball, I decided, is backgammon for athletes.  Instead of dice, baseball has bats and balls.  But bats and balls are both round, so when one meets the other at high speed, the result is unpredictable, random.  True, a good pitcher can dominate a game, but baseball at the higher levels only gets more random, since pitchers, instead of throwing everything straight, can spin the ball to the plate trying for curve and drop at the precise moment the batter thinks he’s on to it.  Just as in backgammon, the laws of probability favor the more skilled player, but any one at-bat, and any game between roughly equivalent sides, is left to the dice, to the unknowable outcome when a wooden bat is flying at one hundred miles an hour through the same general air space as a hard round ball coming the opposite direction at ninety miles an hour, each nanosecond the two objects trying to adjust to one another, the ball trying to escape punishment, the bat hoping to deliver it, and not just a slap to the face but a square blow the batter can feel through his whole body down to his toes as he completes the swing.  But it’s still roulette, and when a player improves his skills, he does not take control of the game, he merely improves his odds.  His best hits might still be caught, while his bloops may fall in.  He remains at the mercy of fate, no more powerful than a pawn in the game of chess.

Whereas, the tennis player relies neither on luck nor on teammate in his quest for victory.  In tennis, the better player on a given day always wins.  Luck determines a point here and there, but never the outcome of the match.  The tennis ball is round, but the racquet is flat, and that makes all the difference.  Baseball is for fighter pilots who rely on their skill to survive and win but who can be wiped out at any moment through no fault of their own.  Tennis is for accountants and dentists.  Tennis is clean, precise, regular, and predictable.  Baseball belongs to nature; tennis overcomes it.  Baseball was invented by and for rough and tumble working men, tennis by aristocrats in need of a workout.  Baseball is social, based on teamwork and ritual; tennis is concerned with superiority, separating people at the individual level, aiming towards a vast ranking list, one through infinity, each person occupying a well-defined slot behind his superiors, ahead of his inferiors.  Baseball is the greater game, from a humanistic and dramatic standpoint.  But tennis made more sense for a boy desperate to make his own fortune, and for better or worse at age eleven I set aside my cleats and long pants and teammates and my beloved bat, and I picked up a Pancho Gonzales model wooden tennis frame, strung in a tight, flat, grid with thin nylon string.

©Thomas Mott, 2004