It was a father-son game at a picnic with my Little League team. I was about 10. I was playing catcher for the first … and last … time in my life. Up to the plate strolled my dad, who at that time would have been in his early 50s, his hair silver, his waist a little bit thicker than it had ever been.
You can guess my prayer. The prayer of every child: “Oh, God, I hope he doesn’t embarrass me.”
On the mound stood some hotshot teenager. I’m guessing the brother of a teammate. Dad casually digs into the batter’s box. In comes the first pitch.
My father swings and misses.
Oh, no! My heart fell under my chest protector. My prayer wasn’t going to be answered. Thank God I was wearing a mask.
I heard my dad mutter underneath his breath, with disbelief and a hint of anger—odd, because I’d never seen him angry—”That punk threw me a curve.”
TRENDING ARTICLES
He dug a little deeper into the batter’s box. He grew still in his batting stance. The pitcher wound up and whizzed one toward the plate.
My father swung. Crack! No, a clap of thunder.
With God as my witness, I have never seen a ball hit that far. It was still rising as it passed over the left fielder’s head. The ball may as well have been made by NASA rather than Rawlings. The outfielder turned and ran, and ran … and ran as the ball disappeared toward a nearby school. The kid may still be running.
As for my dad, he slowly trotted down to first base … and stopped. Dad looked back at me and shrugged, then with a mischievous smile, said, “I just had two hot dogs. Not gonna run in this heat.”
That was my dad. Sweet, warm, and funny—but with a palpable power and mad skills lurking underneath. It’d been there since he was a kid. My Uncle Nick, nine years older, would use my dad in street hustles. He’d trash-talk people playing horseshoes in rough-and-tumble Paterson, New Jersey, taunting, “You guys stink. I could beat you with that kid over there,” gesturing toward the cherubic altar boy who just “happened” to be looking on.
They’d take the bet. Like that pitcher thinking he could humiliate the old man, they bet wrong. My father would hit ringer after ringer, and the brothers would walk away with the cash.
The weekend of my own brother’s wedding, the uncles from my mother’s side had come to town. Understand, these Jersey goodfellas had always considered my dad a softy under my mom’s control, as opposed to being the capo—the prototype of Italian machismo. They were at the kitchen table, and, as was always the case, they and my aunt were yelling and bellowing at each other. I’ve been to concerts by The Who that weren’t as loud as my Jersey relatives.
My father slowly rose from his seat. Glared. Down his fists came against the table. The entire house shook like an earthquake. Then, without raising his voice, he said with a chill more intense than the January air, “You will not fight in this house the weekend of my son’s wedding.”
The room went death silent. These men, who could brush off mob bosses like lint off a pinstripe suit, knew he meant business. Thirty years of misconception out the window.
I never saw that side of him, but instinctively, I knew it was there—that he was not one to be crossed. His mother’s maiden name was Capone. Though she insisted we were no relation, you did have to wonder.
Rather, he had such a good and loving heart that you did not want to disappoint him.
What kind of heart? Let’s go back to Little League. Little Albert did not believe in rainouts. Although the phenomenon is commonplace in the D.C. area, I refused to accept its existence, no matter the conditions. I remember one day—who knows, it may have been during Hurricane Agnes—the skies offered hour upon hour of downpour. I insisted my game was still on. Houses were floating down Bock Road, but I’m pleading, “I know the game isn’t canceled!”
My saintly, patient father agreed to drive me to the ballpark to prove there’d be no ballgame that day. Sure enough, the place was deserted, but for dolphins splashing around in center field. “The field’s not that bad!” I cried.
Dad suggested we go to Hovermale’s, an ice cream stand on Indian Head Highway. There he got me my usual: a chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream cone and a chili dog.
Suddenly, the rainout did not feel so bad.
Dad always made it feel better.
I remember the day I was voted by my teammates to the league all-star team, but the coach gave my spot to some other kid. No explanation. No apology. My dad offered to talk to the coach, which, between his dashing charm and his deeply buried Capone genes, probably would have ended well for me, but perhaps not the coach. I said, “No, it’s OK.”
While the rejection stung, knowing Dad had my back, feeling the love, was truly enough.
Well, that and another stop at Hovermale’s.
A few short years later, Dad passed away. No amount of ice cream could make up for that wound. No other storm would rain out my life that way.
And yet this Father’s Day, my heart is not heavy.
I’m thinking of Dad, and how there’s an enemy out on the mound. This time I’m the one in the batter’s box. May I mutter, “That punk threw me a curve” … and hit his next pitch a country mile.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.
Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE
Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.
The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.
In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.
You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.
TRENDING ARTICLES
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you.
RELATED ARTICLES
Don’t miss the
Don’t miss the signal
