T-ball is a hit for adults, too
/The Boston Globe
Beverly Beckham
I took more than 200 pictures last Saturday morning. A few are OK. You take pictures of little kids in baseball uniforms and you're sure to get some decent shots. But not one of them comes close to capturing all that was really happening at Devoll Field in Canton last week.
It was opening day for Little League. T-ball division, the smallest players in town. The field swarmed with them, 5- and 6-year-olds in uniforms, sponsored by some of the town's businesses.
My granddaughter, Lucy, wore No. 2 for the Athletics, and her cousin Adam wore No. 6 for the Indians. Twenty-six, Adam's mother declared, seeing them side-by-side. Wade Boggs wore number 26, she said. Wade Boggs, her all-time favorite Red Sox player. This is a great sign, she insisted, proving once again exactly how crazy Red Sox fans really are.
Some of the kids on the field in their new shirts and hats (``Do you like my costume?'' one of them asked) weren't really into baseball. It didn't matter. The coaches, men with full-time jobs and, just like the rest of us, little time for much else, made time. On the first perfect spring morning, they patiently showed children how to stand and how to hold a bat, how to field, and how to run the bases.
Parents and grandparents watched from the sidelines, some in chairs, some leaning against the fence. The coaches coached. The kids swung and hit, a few on their own, most with a little adult help. Everyone yelled and cheered every time a ball made the slightest contact with a bat and every time a kid landed near a base.
It was the best game in town.
You don't get this kind of entertainment even on Broadway.
My son and daughter-in-law live in Manhattan. They love it there, all the choices, the conveniences. They have friends, neighbors, playgroups. They even live just a few blocks from a park.
But this typical, annual, suburban rite of spring?
My son played on this same field many years ago. It wasn't T-ball then. It was the farm league. Then he played for the Brewers, the Indians, the Athletics, the Braves, and the Mariners. I remembered just one of the names. I called and he rattled them all off.
It was a Tuesday night, my son said, when Mr. Caroline phoned and told him he was on the Brewers. It was his first real team. His first full uniform. The kids who had even numbers in their address were in the American League, and the kids with the odd numbers were in the National League.
He doesn't remember what he did yesterday. But he remembers this.
He was so serious when he played ball. Knees bent, hands tight on the bat, an almost scowl on his little boy face. He used to slam down his bat when he struck out. He used to have to get angry so that he wouldn't cry.
I like that nobody strikes out in T-ball. All the kids get to hit and all the kids get to run and all the kids get to play.
And from the sidelines, we grown-up kids watch and cheer and snap pictures that don't tell the whole story because no words or pictures can.
