A kid is sitting in the stands

Photo by Bryan Dickerson

A kid is sitting in the stands wearing a red Scott’s Farms Little League uniform. Number 29. It’s me and yes, I’m here to talk to him again because, for me, getting older is learning to talk to who I was when I was 12.

We’re at the Kiwanis Park in Johnson City. The field lights here were installed when Sandy Koufax was still pitching, so they’re humming like cicadas. The concrete stands were painted green when Sandy Koufax was playing Little League; they’re chipped in places. 12-year-old me is picking at one of the chips. He winces as one gets stuck under his fingernail.

“That always hurts like hell,” I say, sitting down next to him.

“Oh, hello again,” he says. He pauses: “Mom says we can’t say the h-word.”

“Oh, dammit. Sorry.”

“What brings you back here?” He asks. It does something in my sternum that he’s perked up a little since I sat down.

“Was this your last game? The city tournament?” I ask.

He looks down, his finger in his lap, which is bleeding a little.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, holding back tears which he would blame on the pain in his finger if I asked him, but I don’t.

“I would ask you what happened, but I remember that one,” I say.

All this kid, me, all I’d ever dreamed of was hitting a home run. From being 8 years old when Mark “Big Mac” McGuire and Slammin’ Sammy Sosa were chasing Maris across the Indian Summer of 98, to the stupid Geoff Moore & the Distance song, the mark of being a man, the rite of passage, the way to get Anna Grace Anderson to finally fall in love with me, was to hit one over the fence and jog around the bases.

Both my brothers had done it, my friends had done it, Dylan Pratt had done it 19 times for the Lion’s Club team. But I hadn’t. The closest I’d come was hitting one off the top of the fence against Dental Arts.

And tonight, this kid had played his final Little League game.

In the 5th inning, his last at-bat, he’d gotten eager on a belt-high fastball, turned on it so hard, and ripped a mammoth shot into the night sky that had drifted foul before it went into the street. Had it been fair it would have cleared the fence by a 30 feet. The next pitch he grounded out to short.

After this, he’ll go home and cry on his bed with the words “complete failure” bouncing around his brain. You can say it’s just baseball. But he’s a 12-year-old. Back off, you know you’ve still got something in your life that you care about more than you should.

I sit there as he fumbles with his bleeding finger, and I try to think of something wise to say but nothing comes.

“You know we’re having another kid?” I blurt out.

“No way!”

“Yeah, and would you believe it? It’s a boy.”

“I have a son someday?” he says.

“Yeah. Yeah, you do. We don’t have a name picked out yet.”

“Sammy Sosa Scott,” he says.

“Not bad,” I say. And laugh because he wasn’t joking.

“Actually, I wouldn’t want to name him after Sammy Sosa,” he says, sucking on his finger.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Then he will feel like he has to hit a bunch of home runs for us to like him or something.”

“That’s true,” I nod.

“He’ll have a cool name just because it’s cool,” he says. His finger has finally stopped bleeding.

“Oh, yeah?” I say.

“Yeah.”

I’m blinking something back. He’s going to be just fine.

“Luke Skywalker Scott” he’s laughing, but still not joking.

“I’ll run it by Emily,” I say. “Dude, how awesome is Empire Strikes Back?”

“If I could fly anything, it’d be a Snowspeeder,” he says. “Like when Luke shoots the cable and wraps the AT-AT’s legs? It’s so awesome. I got a new Star Wars video game yesterday at Target.”

And we sit there on the bleachers beneath the humming lights and talk for what feels like hours.

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SUBSCRIBER SHOUTOUT: This story made me think of Spencer Garland. He’s one of those readers that makes this writing thing worth it. If you enjoy these pieces, know that Spencer’s encouragement is one of the reasons they exist.