Emmett's Baseball Camp (and Barry Bonds's Broken Record)

On the day when Barry Bonds broke the career homerun record, my son made it to third in his second-ever baseball game at camp. Woo hoo! That's quite an accomplishment (Emmett's, that is).

Bonds is known to have used performance-enhancing drugs, ranging from steroids to growth hormone. He doesn't even deserve the asterisk that Roger Maris's record was supposed to get in 1961 when he needed 8 extra games to break Babe Ruth's single-season record. Asterisks would be too good for Barry. I don't even give his record an ampersand... maybe a question mark instead. Luckily his record will be eclipsed in 7 or 8 years by the great Alex Rodriguez, who last week, at age 32, became the youngest 500-homerun-hitter of all time.

My son, Emmett, on the other hand is known to have used water, pretzels, and sun screen in his baseball career. It started auspiciously when he hit an infield single in his first at-bat yesterday, but unfortunately, he was erased when he ran to 2nd on the ensuing kid's popup and was tagged out for failing to tag up. He knows the rule now, but unfortunately, he had to learn it the hard way. I had a little chat with the coach this morning, and I was happy that he appreciated my suggestion to improve the way he handles things when working with kids unfamiliar with the rules.

Baseball is a weird sport. I should call it a "game" since "sports" involve fit people breaking a sweat while doing something that requires skill, and baseball is only batting 1-for-3 according to that definition. In any case, what's odd about baseball is that you cannot sum up in just a sentence or two the basics of the game. Let's try to define a few sports and games to see how easy they are to learn:

HOCKEY: For one hour, players carrying curved sticks skate on ice while trying to shoot a flat, rubber, 'puck' into the opponent's goal.

SOCCER: Like hockey, only with a head-sized ball, grass instead of ice, 30 extra minutes, and a larger playing area.

ULTIMATE: Like soccer, only with a frisbee instead of a ball and marijuana instead of grass. The time of the game is limited by how long each team can stave off the munchies.

BASKETBALL: For 48 minutes, two teams try to put a large, bouncy ball into the other team's small basket ten feet off the ground. In order to move the ball, players either pass it or they bounce it while walking or running. Baskets are worth between 1 and 3 points.

FOOTBALL: For one hour, each team tries to move an elongated spheroid across the opponent's back line. They can kick it thru the opponent's "goalposts" for 3 points or run it across the back line for 6 points. If a team doesn't advance 30 feet every 4 tries (or less), the ball is given to the other team.

BASEBALL: Over nine "innings" each team has three 'outs' during which they... wait, no. OK, in this game, the defense has the ball. The team on offense sends batters up to a five-sided plate situated 60.5 feet from a mound where the defense's "pitcher" stands. Using a bat, each hitter tries to put the ball into play inside of a 90-degree angle defined by two lines that run from the plate out towards the field. There is a 'fair' territory inside that 90 degrees and a 'foul' territory outside of that. Hitters have 3 "strikes" before they're called out, but if they see 4 bad pitches, called "balls," then they can advance safely to the first of four "bases," the last of which is the same plate where they started. The defense has 9 players in different places who... oh, never mind!

It's easy to see why Emmett was a bit lost in his first day of this new sport. He and I have only recently begun to play catch, and we almost never watch baseball on tv (he's only seen parts of a few games). He'd never hit a ball with a bat until last month. But the kid can throw a mean frisbee and is the youngest unicycle-rider on the east coast, as I reminded him several times recently. If those other kids give him a hard time, he can just ride his uni for them and they'll be quite impressed. Which gives me an idea about tomorrow's drop-off....