Henry's First Hit
By Chuck Beikert
Henry's cleats dug into the well churned dirt to the left of the plate and he squeezed the bat handle. He twisted his hands another quarter turn to set his grip. The boy standing next to the pitcher's mound wore a red helmet. His four pitches had gone wild and now he was postured in that way that eight year old boredom demands, arms hanging at his side as he shuffled his feet and watched his sister running between the swings and the concession stand.
The Coach had the ball and he held it up in front of him before going into a simplified pitching motion, one that he used in batting practice with all of his players. Coaches pitch to their own team and our coach Dave has a great delivery. Our bases are frequently loaded in these Farm League games and the run tally for either team regularly climbs into double digits.
Henry is in his first-year but he's the biggest kid on the team. All of us know that the day is going to come when he figures out his swing and really starts crushing the ball. Up until today though he's only hit foul balls and had frustrating at bats leading to strikeout after strikeout. At seven his disappointment is fleeting, replaced quickly by deep interest in an oversized cricket or another boy's grape bubblegum but it's disappointment just the same. Every at bat brings the same anxiety and the same round of deep sighs from the on-deck circle. Whispered wishes that he won't be the final out, oaths of his intention to watch the ball all the way in, steps on his approach to the plate punctuated with "get-a-hit-get-a-hit" all make us just as anxious. He's trying and doing like we taught him. So far though he's just come up short.
I played baseball on the same field when I was his age. We played in bluejeans and recycled t-shirts, all varying shades of red and each emblazoned with the word "Cardinals", though half wore block letters and the other half script. 1982. I never even saw a pair of cleats until I was standing in Center field with my back to the Pony league game adjacent to us. The giant boy wearing a real uniform played catch with the other outfielders and used a fantastic number of curses. I looked around when he used the "F" word a whopping three times in one sentence. His baseball shoes were black and white and looked exactly like the ones that the big-leaguers wore. I imagined that they were tremendously more expensive than my flat canvas sneakers.
Henry's uniform sported a bright yellow jersey with the number 12 on the back and a genuine MLB Farm team logo on the front. His sand-knit baseball pants had elastic cuffs that gathered above his own black and white cleated shoes. He looked like a real baseball player and his gold batting helmet finished it off. He cut an impressive figure in the batter's box. His stance was careful and precise and we could see him whispering to himself as he waited for his pitch.
The previous at bats hadn't gone well. Twice he'd struck out on the first three pitches Dave threw him. His head lowered and dragging his bat behind him, he'd returned to the bench amid silent teammates who might only have seemed silent to us in the stands. I hoped but didn't believe that somehow kids had become kinder or more tolerant of the failings of their peers. We never heard anyone jeering, those kinds of behaviors aren't really tolerated in this age group or in this day and age, but the taunts from 1982 were still remarkably fresh in my ears as I watched my boy slink, in an all too familiar fashion, back to the dugout.
My father had played here too, in the '50s and '60s in a league that was genuinely a "farm" effort. All the boys on his team were farm kids and they played in boots and shop caps with button down work shirts. The trees were shorter then. There was no concession stand and there were no bleachers. The infield was as grassy as the outfield and the backstop was made of wood planks. Spectators either stood or sat on the grass since the first seating wouldn't arrive until '65. That year a local business built the set that still occupies the spot just above the left line on the original field. There are four other fields now and two concession stands.
Henry took a slow halting cut at the first pitch and Dave looked up at me. He pointed at me three times and I knew immediately what he meant. Following his last strikeout, an inning ender that stranded two runners, Dave asked if I thought Henry could handle a little more heat. He always seemed ahead of the ball, eager to connect and trying to slow a swing that began much too early. We agreed that I might have been tossing them a little faster in the front yard where Henry had been comfortably connecting for weeks without the pressure of an actual game on his mind. He'd fallen into a rhythm with the other kids but now he remembered to goose it a little and see if it made a difference.
Henry reset himself and gripped the bat again just like we'd practiced. His back elbow was up and his gaze was on Coach Dave's right hand. The ball appeared out in front as it always did before he began his motion. I waited squinting with my fingers secretly crossed behind my back.
Suddenly the ball was shooting up the first base line raising tiny puffs of dust as it skipped the surface past the bag and well past the still non-reactive first baseman.
"Foul Ball!" came the cry from our First Base Coach. No umpires at this level either. A budgetary issue, to be sure, and one that had caused more than a few ultra-polite discussions between rival coaches over close calls. They mainly consisted of comments like "I'm not saying you couldn't see the play but are you sure you saw it? It really looked like the throw was there to me. Great effort boys! You're sure then? He was safe? Ok. We just want to get it right for the kids here. No! I believe you! As long as you're sure. You're sure? OK then. " That followed by mutterings and swift but low-profile hand gestures that suggested the coach fell somewhere short of total agreement and closer to barely controlled outrage.
Two strikes and Henry got himself reset. Dave showed him the ball before bouncing one a foot in front of the plate. Henry didn't swing but his shoulders slumped. Each batter got eight pitches. Four from a kid just learning to pitch, most of whom either threw wild looping balls way outside, above or even behind the batters, and four from the coach. Henry was down to pitch number eight. There were no walks. It was swing at anything or strike out looking.
We could see him get set up in the box. Even at this age he ground his rearward foot into the dirt and planted it. We saw his elbow go up and we saw the bat twitch above his right shoulder. I knew it was coming then, when I saw that twitch. It looked like the tail of a jungle cat who was about to pounce on its prey.
Dave showed him the ball and threw it in a little faster than before. He had his pitching arm extended and his front leg was down the mound like he was pitching to a grown-up, an actual pitch and it looked like a decent fastball.
Henry stepped into it and turned his hands over as if he'd been playing for years. A satisfying crack rang in the ears of all assembled and the ball jumped off the bat and flew out over second base before landing in shallow center field and rolling a few feet. Startled fielders on the other team stutter-stepped in place like cartoon characters before finding momentum enough to run toward the ball. Henry's surprise was evident and we all shouted "RUN HENRY!" as he dropped his bat and hustled down to first.
A throw came in, late and dropped by the boy standing next to the bag but Henry had his foot squarely atop first base. It was a single and he had advanced the runner from first to third.
There are triumphs of men and we all know what they are. Bridges and skyscrapers, symphonies and cultures, rockets and heart transplants. What do we first wonder at though? What are our first feats of magnificence? How do we impress ourselves at the tender age of seven in this world full of 3D movies and handheld devices that answer all of the world's questions as long as the wi-fi signal gets through?
I'm not certain. I don't know exactly how Henry felt that day, getting his first hit and hearing us cheer his name. I only know that he was laughing as he stood at first, almost hysterically and that he flashed us the double peace sign and waved his arms back and forth.
I wasn't recording it and I didn't whip out my cellphone camera to snap a picture either. I watched it like my father might have watched me or how my grandfather might have watched him, with my eyes and with all of my heart. I'm no sports nut and I wasn't any great athlete in my own right but we only ever get one first hit. Henry got his that day and for that few minutes before the next boy struck out and the side was retired, both of us were on top of the world.
