She could hear the roar of the crowd as fans and foes alike stand to their feet, so many fans gleefully hopeful with hands and arms stretched toward the heavens; just as many fans grimacing in dismay with hands clasped below their chins, all eyes gawking at the baseball arcing higher and higher toward the outfield fence in deep center field.
Runners at every base turn and watch the white speck become smaller and smaller, almost disappearing way, way up in the cloudless blue sky, infielders and outfielders alike watching… watching…watching in interminable awe as the centerfielder drifts back…back…way back to the warning track, to the wall….
She smiled at the memory, hands thrust into the pockets of her winter coat, the collar turned up against the chill, the autumn leaves flying up a bit at her feet as she scuffed at them, strolling along the path.
So many golden yellow leaves that still clung to the branches would soon enough lose their grip and join the others scattered about, all to be covered with a dusting and perhaps more of snow as winter came on.
Her grandson had been born with a ball in his hand. Many were the nights he’d fall asleep gripping that ball with one hand, a baseball glove on the other.
“Rub some dirt on it,” his father, also his coach, said to the tear-stained little guy who maybe got the worst of it following that slide – more like a collision – at home plate.
When his tooth became loose from having face-planted in the outfield he pulled it himself. And he pulled his friend’s tooth too given he’d experience in such matters.
Sure made for cute smiles – those missing teeth did – which he preferred, smiling as opposed to talking.
She sat for a bit on the bench that doubled as a dugout. This was where he sat, awaiting his turn at the plate.
Come spring he would be playing his last year for his high school, then off to college. His mom would cry when he crossed the stage and received his diploma.
‘I will too,’ she thought, already tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
Then, like the ball that cleared the centerfield fence that day; like the grin he wore as he rounded the bases, a grand slam in the record books, then she would watch him fly away, and be so proud of the wonderful sweet young man he had become.
