The Boys of Summer
CJ/Danny, ensemble
Rating Child–
Spoilers through end of series
Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul
Feedback and criticism always welcomed
Thursday June 16, 2016; Santa Monica, CA; late afternoon
"Hold the bat this way, Ethan, and keep your feet pointed like this. And remember, always keep your eyes on the ball."
Danny helped the youngster with his stance. Then he stepped back and smiled as Ethan connected with the pitch and hit the ball past the gap between the second baseman and the short stop.
"Good job, Ethan!" Danny shouted as the kid easily reached first base.
It was Paddy's first year in the "Minor League" division of Little League and Danny was coaching his son's team, the Santa Monica Wolverines. Had they wished, they could have kept Paddy in the T-ball league for another year, but the boy's hand-eye coordination was top-rate and he showed signs of becoming a good pitcher, at least according to the teachers who monitored the playground games at St. Monica's. Besides, according to Paddy, he was no longer a little kid, "I'm going into second grade." Therefore, Danny and CJ agreed to move their son into the next level.
Danny jumped at the chance to be head coach for the team when the call went out for volunteers. "I loved playing ball when I was a kid," Danny told CJ. "And, looking back, having my father help coach the team was a chance to be with him. During the other seasons, Dad often worked an extra shift, or three, at the plant, but summers, he only worked the regular forty hours."
After much cajoling, Danny was able to enlist Ken Robbins ("I'm having withdrawal from doing the scholastic golf circuit with Jill") and Billy Rogers ("until it's time for Will to start playing") from the block to help out. With another kid's father and Ethan's older half-brother, the coaching staff was complete. Caleb Ranch, Ethan's brother, would be entering Cal State Fresno in the fall on a baseball scholarship, and he coached the budding pitchers. CJ tried, and for the most part succeeded, to hide her amusement when Danny dealt with seeing his son idolize the youngest member of the coaching staff. ("Caleb says this; Caleb does that," Danny muttered one day when he and CJ lingered at the courtyard table after supper. "Can you believe Paddy wanted to cut the grass because that's what Caleb does? I know he has your height genes, but there's no way he'd be able to reach the handlebar of the mower for at least three years.")
Truth be told, Danny was glad that someone else was coaching his son. Teaching his son one on one was a rite that Danny cherished, but in the team situation, he felt it would be better if he gave his son no more and no less attention than he gave to his other players.
Danny had tried to enlist some of the others on the block for his staff, but the other fathers were all involved with their sons' or daughters' teams – even Jesse was working with Steve's summer lacrosse league; Jimmy and Timmy were still too busy with their hospital duties to work with the kids.
"Paddy! Trent! Pay attention!"
Danny looked up at the outfield, where Ken and Gil, the other father, were conducting fielding drills. His son was by the fence, talking with a little bevy of six, going on seven year-old girls. One paternal part of him was glad that his son, even at this age, was attracted to, and was attractive to, the opposite sex. Of course, Paddy had eyes, and deep pre-adolescent love, only for one Magdaléna Ynès Muñoz, but like his father, he was innately considerate of, and took age-appropriate enjoyment in ("Daddy, sometimes, when Maggie and I hug, my penis gets tingly"), the opposite sex. The other paternal part of him resisted the urge to reprimand his son, to tell him that, for now, he needed to concentrate on smoothing out his scooping and throwing technique. Tonight, in the privacy of their home, Danny and Paddy would be father and son. Right now, they were coach and athlete; Danny would leave the discipline to the men to whom he had delegated this particular task. Paddy quickly understood the difference between the two situations and made similar adjustments with ease.
"Trent! Listen to Mr. Ken or I'll ground you!"
Danny winced at the sound of Gabe Dandridge's voice coming from the stands. He would have preferred that parents not attend the practices, but he accepted the inevitable. At the beginning of the season, he developed a technique for dealing with those fathers – and mothers – who tried to take a more active role in the process.
"I'm so glad you're interested! I'd love to have you on the staff! We practice twice a week, Monday and Thursday afternoons. The games are usually on Wednesday and Friday early evening, or Saturday afternoon. I have a coach's staff meeting Tuesday at my place. Of course, you'll have to take the certification class for those working with minors, the next one is on the first Saturday of the month, all day, at Grace Lutheran, where you'll be fingerprinted and fill out the form for a police background check first, but once you get that out of the way, you'll be able to contribute. In the meantime, just observe and make notes of anything about which you might have some ideas. Here's my card with my email. Feel free to send me whatever you want."
As a result, Danny had very few overbearing parents in the stands at either practice or play.
Out of the corner of his eye, Danny noticed more and more parents arriving and glanced at his watch.
"Okay guys, time for cool down."
After the exercises, the team gathered their equipment and policed the area for trash. Danny gave the team the information they would need for Friday's game, verbally and also on sheets to give to their parents, and dismissed the boys after a final "Wolverines!". The coaching staff spent about eight minutes talking with various moms and dads. There wasn't another team waiting to use the field, so they stored the base pads, locked the restrooms, and parted company.
Had Danny and Paddy been alone in the car, Danny might have taken advantage of the time to impress upon his son the need to pay attention to his coaches, but with Ken and Billy as passengers, the gentle scolding would have to wait.
Friday, June 17; 7:30 PM PDT
"Way to go Paddy!"
Danny smiled at the words CJ shouted from the stand. Two seconds earlier, he had laughed in glee as he heard the whistle that Mitch and Randy had taught her as a young girl. The first time Danny had heard it, a month or so after their wedding, Danny wondered aloud why his new bride had never used her skill to tame the White House press corps.
"Well, considering all the speculation that was floating about concerning my sexual inclinations, the last thing I needed to do was add to the rumor mill, Danny."
"Well, all they had to do was ask me, CJ. I would have set them straight. And, as I recall, Tad Whitley did."
"Yeah, but word on the street was that he was a beard, that I duped him. Or that I played both sides of the street."
At the time, Danny could hear the hurt in her voice, not that she would have been ashamed had she been gay, he knew, but because what should not have been public fodder was, for her, just that. Now, he reveled in the many facets of the woman that God had, in Her infinite goodness, destined to be the love of his life.
Caleb was bringing his pitchers along very conservatively and only allowed them to pitch two innings per game max. He also preferred that, if at all possible, the kids who pitched in a game rotated only to catcher and the four infield positions and not be in the outfield where they would have to throw harder and longer to reach the bases. Paddy had just pitched two perfect innings – exactly six batters, exactly eighteen pitches, all strikes.
Although Paddy had held the other team run less for two innings, they were still ahead 5-4 and it was the bottom of the sixth – the last inning at this level.
The first two players singled and all those pulling for the Wolverines were on their feet with excitement. It was Paddy's turn up at bat. The pitch came and Paddy swung at it, sending it directly into the third baseman's mitt. That young man reacted quickly, as did the other infielders, and, within five seconds, the game was over – a triple play. Jubilation on the part of the Santa Monica Tigers; on the Wolverines bench, not so much.
Quickly, before the "going into second graders" succumbed to six, going on seven year-old tears, Danny and the others got the kids lined up to shake hands with the victors. Later, over burgers, fries, and shakes at the Dairy Queen, the coaches told the boys that they had played a good game and that sometimes, life happened.
As the group was leaving, Danny overheard a conversation between two of the fathers.
"Concannon shouldn't have played his kid at that point. Paddy may be a good pitcher, but his hitting leaves a lot to be desired."
"Come on, Dave. You know that Gil was making the rotation decisions. And for God's sake, they're just little boys, barely out of diapers."
Danny didn't mind for himself; he was an adult. But his son wasn't, and Paddy heard the interchange. His little face, so much an image of CJ, fell the way his mother's often did during those years with Jed Bartlet, and his eyes filled with tears.
"I'm sorry I cost the game, Daddy."
Danny looked around quickly. They were outside and none of the other boys were around. He bent down to pick up his son, and Paddy wrapped his arms and legs around Danny's trunk.
"It's not your fault, Paddy. And don't worry about the hitting. It will come. We'll just have to practice more at home, you and me."
Saturday, June 18; early evening
"Frank! Frank! Frank!
The circumstances were similar to yesterday's. The game was in the bottom of the ninth. The team was down 5-4. Two men were on base, Danny and Manny Hammash.
This time the count was oh and two.
Frank Muñoz' bat connected with the pitch.
This time it flew over the head of the third baseman, over the head of the leftfielder, and over the outfield fence.
This time, Danny's team won.
With fourteen "over eighteen" males on the block (counting Radak Dieliczko who was home for the summer), they had enough guys to enter a team in the city baseball league. Danny's involvement in the national pastime was not limited to coaching his son's team.
This team was much less structured. The guys practiced two or three times in early May, before the start of the schedule, but after that, it was "let's get to the field about thirty minutes early and warm up". Right now, they were two games over five hundred, but they were playing for the fellowship and the post-game beer as much as they were playing for ranking and ego.
The games provided another opportunity for neighborhood bonding and with their wives and kids usually in attendance, the games often became an excuse, as if they needed one, for a community finger-food picnic at the ball field. This one was no exception. The older kids – Carmen, Steve, and the Feldman twins – had offered to take the younger ones home for a pizza/pool party, so the adults could celebrate the victory at Harry's.
"Use our place," Danny said, tossing a set of house keys to Carmen. "Some of the boys may want to watch the ball game and with our set-up, you can keep an eye on them from the pool deck. Also, after the younger ones crash, you guys can have the hot tub as well as the pool. Just the usual rules, no one except kids on the block, etc." Danny knew there was no need to specify no alcohol, no tobacco, no drugs. "Eat anything you want that you can find."
Fifteen minutes later, the gang was at their usual group of tables at the back of Harry's, eating, drinking, and joking.
"What time do you play tomorrow?" Manny asked his wife. "Sarah said she'd be at the restaurant, she just needs to know when."
"We're playing at 3:00," CJ answered for Aviva, whose mouth was full of hamburger.
"And ribs at our place afterward," Laura Robbins added.
In previous years, the block had fielded a team in the coed softball league; this year that league had fallen apart. The rules required that each team field equal numbers of men and women and most of the teams had lost their female players to an upstart all women softball league that had been started by a group of women with a decidedly anti-male agenda. As a result, the women of the block formed a team in the all female volleyball league. The leadership of this group had much more commonsense. Although the teams were female, there were many male coaches and lots of support from husbands, boyfriends, and sons. And the women were not expected to play in skimpy bikinis. Most of the players wore gym shorts and halter tops.
"You'll cream them," Jesse said, not caring that his mouth was also full of food.
"From your lips to God's ear," Sally prayed as CJ, Hannah, Aviva, and Nancy all said "No! Go outside, turn around three times, and spit!"
After the laughter ended, Diana told the others that although the team was riding a perfect record into the match, things would get dicier in the next month, "especially with CJ and Danny out of town for most of July".
"You're spending the fourth with the Lyman's, right? Radak asked.
"We'll be with Josh and Donna from the twenty-sixth to the first," CJ said. "We'll be with Paul and Clara for the holiday. Nobody does Independence Day like DC and it's been a while. Then we go to Cape May until the twelfth, when we fly over to Shannon."
"Ah, the joys of academia," Jimmy Jenkins said. "Don't you just envy them?"
"Most years, yes," Frank said. "But this year - ".
Carmen had graduated from St. Monica's in June and would be starting at UC Santa Cruz in the fall. Frank was openly and laughingly honest about being the typical father who was having two thoughts about his little girl leaving the nest.
July 4, 2016; Washington, DC; 9:45 PM EDT
CJ knelt up against Danny's back, put her arms around his shoulders, and quickly kissed the back of his neck.
"How can she sleep through all this?" she asked, looking over Danny's right shoulder at a slumbering Caitlin, cradled in her father's arms.
As if in answer, Caitlin sighed in her sleep and nestled into Danny's chest as three more bursts of fireworks exploded overhead.
"Wow! Did you see that one, Derrick?"
Paddy had another young adult male to idolize in Paul's son, who was just back from a month in Europe assisting with a case at The Hague.
Earlier in the day, Danny, Paddy, Josh, Noah, Leo, Micah, Paul, and Derrick had taken in the afternoon game between the Nationals and the Mets while CJ, Clara, Donna, and Joannie attended a special party at the British Embassy. (Two years ago, the impossible had happened – a Welsh widow with two little girls had managed to snare John Marbury into marriage and the man had become a totally besotted with his ready-made family. Deron, the elder of Lord Marbury's stepdaughters, was celebrating her fifth birthday, and the Ambassador was sparing no expense.)
Coming back from the restroom after the fifth inning, Danny overheard Paddy and Noah talking about how "cool" Derrick was.
"When I get a big brother, I hope he's as nice as Derrick," Paddy said.
While Noah told Paddy that "unless Aunt CJ and Uncle Danny adopt someone, you won't get a big brother", Danny felt himself shifting slightly out of alignment with reality and caught a glimpse of an alternate universe in which he was no longer in the lives of his family. The image only lasted for a second, but it left him shivering. Normalcy quickly returned. Danny was grateful that the alternate universe was not real; he was also grateful that had it been real, that Paul and his family would have been there for CJ and his children, that Derrick would have helped Paddy with his swing.
"Are you jealous?" CJ asked her husband, following his glance over to his son and the young lawyer.
"Yeah, maybe a little. But I'm glad that my son has good role models in the sixteen to almost thirty set."
Then a low chuckle caused CJ and Danny to look beyond the boys to Paul and Clara. Paul's attentions discreet to the point of being unnoticeable, but Clara's blush was visible in the half-light of the outbursts over the Mall.
"Are you jealous?"
The question slipped out of Danny's mouth before he knew it.
CJ looked at Danny as if he had grown a second head. Then she smiled.
"Jealous? Of course not. Happy for the two of them? In the extreme."
July 8, 2016; Cape May, NJ; 12:15 PM EDT
"We're hungry," Noah Lyman announced to everyone in general and no one in particular as he led Leo, Micah, Paddy, and Hoop poolside.
Rick looked up from his poker hand.
"Okay, I guess it is time for lunch. Graciella left a salad and a ham and cheese quiche-type dish for us."
"Quiche?" Sev laughed as he climbed out of the pool. "Dad, these kids don't want quiche. Hell, I don't want quiche. We're just a group of guys here. Why don't I start the grill and cook up a bunch of hotdogs?"
"Yeah! Hotdogs!" Matty started jumping up and down; his big brother was the best. The other boys were less physical but showed by their grins that they preferred Sev's suggestion to his father's.
"I don't know," Cal said, "my wife went to a lot of trouble to make that - "
Now it was Brad's turn to gainsay a parent.
"The quiche'll keep. We're men and we want real meat, right, guys?"
At the sight of all the boys (and some of the grown men) nodding up and down, Cal and Rick laughed.
"Okay. Sev, you and Brad are in charge of lunch. But cut up some carrot sticks and no chips," Rick instructed.
The female contingent of Rick and Ginger's house party were all off to a combination bridal shower/tea being held in honor of Brad's fiancée. Cal and Graciella's son had graduated from Rutgers this summer and now he and Chloe were preparing to begin both graduate school and their life together in the fall.
Finishing his third hotdog, Danny agreed that the meal was satisfying in a way that the quiche casserole, no matter how well-seasoned and prepared, could never be, at least not to a group of males outside on a beautiful summer day, one hundred yards from the ocean.
"Good; go swim," Sean Palmer declared.
"We can't go swimming right after we eat, we'll get cramps," Leo told the younger boy.
Danny looked over at the little boy who was the image of Carol. He decided to respond with what, at least for him, was this summer's universal panacea.
"Leo's right (Josh and Sam looked at each other; the phrase brought back so many memories.), we should wait before we go in the water. Why don't we play some baseball for a while?"
The others responded enthusiastically, dividing into teams of seven men/young men each (Danny, Charley, Rick, Toby, Jesse, Brad and Bryce against Josh, Sam, John, Jean-Paul, David, Cal, and Sev). Danny's team had Huck, Paddy, Matty, and little Donnie, whereas Josh had his sons and Hoop Hoynes. They agreed that the two teams would field all four of their youngsters and alternate the grownups. Rob, one of this year's crop of lifeguards, was the umpire.
The two teams had played five fun-filled innings, ending up tied six all, when Rick declared that everyone was hot, tired, and that enough time had passed to settle stomachs.
As the guys followed the boys, who had taken off toward the beach with shouts of glee, Cal, Danny, and Toby fell behind the rest of the group.
"I guess we're the old men of the group," Toby said, favoring his left leg. "But damn, that was fun!"
"You know," Cal observed, "over Brad's twenty-two years, I've seen sports fads come and go – Pop Warner football, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, even rugby – but baseball never seems to go out of fashion."
"Well, I guess it is the great American pastime," Danny replied. "And what was it that George Carlin –"
"In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error," Toby quoted. "Among other things."
Laughing, the three men broke out into a chorus of "Take Me out to the Ballgame" as they ambled down to the waves.
Baseball and Football – George Carlin
Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.
Also: in football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.
In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform, you'd know the reason for this custom.
Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball and football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.
I enjoy comparing baseball and football:
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.
In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?
In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.
In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.
Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.
Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.
Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.
In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.
And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!