Last weekend, my oldest son handed me a baseball that he had found in a shoebox in my mom’s garage.
“Dad, this is pretty cool,” he said, offering it to me.
I smiled as he put it into my hand. It was yellow. It was old. But this ball was still in pretty good shape despite it being more than three decades old. The stitches aren’t as bright red as they used to be, but they have held. The core of the baseball is still solid. And the words written between the stitches are faded but still legible.
It had been years since I’d seen it, but this ball was a huge part of my childhood. It had survived multiple moves and a journey across the country, when I had given it to my cousin in Tennessee more than 30 years ago to “remember me by.”
When my oldest son was born 16 years ago, he mailed it back to me. He wrote, “I’ve enjoyed holding onto it all these years. But I think it’s time you had it back.”
I agreed, though I misplaced it not long after he sent it back. I hadn’t seen it in at least a decade before my boy emerged from the garage with it the other day.
The day this baseball was given to me when I was an 11-year-old Little Leaguer was one of the best days of my childhood. And as the days have gone by, one thing stands out to me:
This baseball is a relic from my past that is so symbolic to my present and future as a man.
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I was like so many American boys in the early 1990’s. I collected sports cards, I rode my bike everywhere, I played outside with my friends until the street lights came on, I watched MTV, and I was absolutely in love with the game of baseball.
It didn’t start that way, though.
In the summer of 1989, when I was 8, my dad took me to the local Parks and Recreation office and signed me up to play Little League baseball. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, mainly because I didn’t know what baseball was, and I was more interested in building forts, tree houses, and playing with toys.
My early baseball career didn’t get off to a good start. I didn’t really understand the game, and I wasn’t good at it. I remember the batting helmet being way too big on my head and it would fall down, covering my eyes. I couldn’t hit a ball to save my life and I remember not liking how my stiff baseball glove fit on my hand.
Everything about baseball felt uncomfortable.
But that would soon change.
May 21, 1989
With my first Little League season coming to an end, my dad decided to take my brother and I to Seattle for “Little League Day.” I didn’t know what that was, and we had driven a long way from Eastern Washington in my dad’s Ford Ranger truck. We were in our baseball uniforms and my dad told me that I was going to a baseball game.
When I first saw the Kingdome, I was shocked at how big it was. It looked majestic. I remember the American flag planted on top of roof. I asked my dad if that was where the baseball game was, and he just smiled.
When we got inside, something inside me changed. The field below us was huge. Players were taking batting practice and launching balls deep into the seats in what looked like miles away from home plate. It was unreal.
The smells. Hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts.
So this was baseball.
Core memories exist in our conscious mind for a reason. And this day is a core memory.
A 19-year-old rookie named Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a rapidly sinking line drive in the ninth inning. Roberto Kelly, the center fielder for the Yankees, dove for the ball, missing it by a few feet. The ball ricocheted off of the turf and bounced off Kelly’s head. Griffey tore his cleats into the turf and dirt, rounding the bases at a speed that I had never seen someone run before. By the time the Yankees got the ball back into the infield, Griffey crossed home plate.
An inside-the-park home run.
The Kingdome was loud, despite the fact that the Mariners were losing.
That was the day baseball changed for me.
That was the day I fell in love with the game.
And the fact that I was with my dad made it even more special.
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May 24, 1993
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