Finding magic on a summer softball field: 1, 2, 3, Oriole’s fly

 

By Mary Kay Roth

Standard advice for youth softball has changed since I last played the game, many years ago. For instance, there is a simpler strategy that calls for wee fielders to consistently throw the ball to first base whenever anyone gets a hit. Consequently, as head coach of our first-grade team, at our first practice of the season this summer, I told my players exactly that: “Fielders, no matter what, when someone gets a hit, always throw the ball to first base.”

So, the practice play started. The softball was hit and a grounder rolled out between first and second. The player covering first base scampered out to retrieve the ball, then turned around and threw the ball … to an empty first base.

Pause.

“Wow, way to hustle, you did exactly what I told you to do, Eden. I’m so proud of you.”

Pause.

“Now, perhaps I failed to fully explain. There actually needs to be someone on first base to catch the ball.”

Yep, I’m coaching softball again. My granddaughter, Scout, had heard all the legendary tales of when I coached her mom – my daughter, Anna.  So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when Scout called this spring, her voice pleading: “GranMary, will you coach my team like you coached Mommy’s?  Pleeeeeeeease.”

I folded like a cheap suitcase. A lawn chair. A house of cards.

I signed up immediately, only then counting backward and realizing that a quarter of a century had passed since I last coached. Rules had changed.  Kids had changed.  Schedules and players were now all online. I was clearly the oldest person at the YMCA’s organizational coach meeting.  And perhaps the most essential question loomed large: If I squatted down to catch a ball, would I ever get back up again?

Thankfully, two co-coaches joined in this endeavor: My daughter, Anna, and a friend, Cynthia, making up a trio of women now in charge of a dozen first-grade girls who mostly have never before played softball. Haven’t held a bat. Can’t figure out how their fingers fit into a mitt. And certainly don’t understand why in the heck there is a player called shortstop between second and third base.

Nonetheless, June arrives, and we all come together as a team, the Oriole’s, approaching our initial practices with honest clarity: We will inevitably start the season amidst one major muddle of confusion.  

Sure enough, several girls who prepare to bat for the first time, arrive at home plate and face … the catcher.  A couple kids proudly reach first base, still holding their bats. Fielders play in the dirt and search for mulberries. One girl rounds the bases – just as we had demonstrated – but when she reaches third, for some mysterious reason, heads back to first.

Then, ever so gradually, the magic starts to happen. The quietest member of the team lobs the most extraordinary throw. A player reaches down and scoops up an impossible catch. A girl who has never before held a bat, steps up and swats her very first hit, dashes to first base – gazes up with unbridled joy. And suddenly, without warning, you remember why you coach.  

“Coach Mary, why are you dancing?” one player asked me during our game on Saturday morning.  

“Because I’m so very proud of you, and I need to do a happy dance to celebrate. I can’t contain myself.” 

I had almost forgotten: Forgotten how, within weeks, I fall in love with each and every girl – forgotten how much heart and soul happens on game days with everyone cheering for everyone else – forgotten how I feel when tiny Mae brings me a lovely heart picture with the words, “Coach Mary, thank you for everything.”

Somehow, I had almost forgotten how much I love this game. 

Annie Savoy, the wisest of women in that most sacred of movies, Bull Durham, declares that baseball is “a religion full of magic, cosmic truth and the fundamental ontological riddles of life.”

Amen to that. 

I was a tomboy as a child, a time when softball was the only sport that girls could play. And that summer passion helped teach me tenacity, a sense of team spirit and an ease with my changing body. So, when my daughter was young and shied away from athletics, coaching was a way to coax her onto a team. 

More than 20 years later Anna now tells me:  “Mom, we have to do everything with Scout’s team that you did when you coached my team. I remember the times you brought water balloons to toss instead of balls.  We went for ice cream after games. And parents always played against their kids on the last practice of the season.”

Trust me, we did not have much of a winning team when Anna played.  So I’m somewhat surprised, yet comforted, that my daughter was not counting losses but instead counting laughter and ice cream cones.

This summer, ready or not, put me in coach, we will continue to tally batting helmets, water bottles and wonder.

“1, 2, 3, Oriole’s fly.” 

At our latest practice we whacked down piñatas to help teach batting skills. And in the coming weeks there will be water balloons to cool us, egg tosses to make sure we catch that ball, gently. Rituals that somehow feel familiar and reassuring. 

I seem to need that right now. Despite vaccinations of salvation and mask-free days, I’m feeling a little untethered and tenuous in these post-pandemic times.  

Strangely enough, running the bases with a fierce group of girls – around a softball field on a sultry, summer night – is helping me find a dependable place to land. Sweaty high fives. Jerseys and mitts getting dirtier by the week. Bronzed limbs stretching for the next base. That wonder when a fly ball actually falls into a girl’s mitt. That surprise when the ball connects with the bat.

And that beatific smile when a little runner reaches first base and looks up with a delightful sense of triumph: “I hit it, Coach Mary. I hit it.  Am I safe?”

Yep. You’re safe.  And so am I.

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