One Last Game of Catch

I hadn't known how much I missed playing sports until a few weeks ago, when I started helping out the Glenville Recreation Center Tee-ball team, the Glenville Titans. More than the exercise, which I always enjoy, it was the children. All of them. From the 6 year olds that had a natural talent for the game to the 5 year old that wanted nothing to do with being outside and running around, I found myself attached to almost all of them.

The first game, one girl told me that she needed some water. I asked her where her mom was; she was apparently at home. Not at the game. The first game. I instantly felt bad for her. I've had that experience. Eventually I took her to get some water after telling the coach and my supervisor that I was doing so. When we got back, her aunt, who I hadn't known to be there, and as it happens, is a good friend of my supervisor's, was yelling at the girl about disappearing.

Apparently, she does this a lot. I kind of worry about that one.

Then there were the kids that just would not wear their hats straight forward. The coach had a strict policy on this. "You are not out on the block. You are on the baseball field in your uniform." And of course, they would turn their hats forward again, and of course, as soon as they thought we weren't looking, they cocked them to the side again. I found myself deeply enjoying just teaching them the basic fundamentals of baseball. How to catch a grounder. How to catch a pop-fly. How to run to first base once you've hit the ball, and not straight to third. I even loved, during that first game (and all others thereafter) running the kids around the bases after they had hit the ball off the tee.

And then there were the older ones. For some of them, I had immediately earned their respect simply by showing up for more than a week. Especially since the first week involved a briefing on a dead child found behind one of the west side centers, irate parents of children we'd had to throw out of the center screaming abusively at us, and a fight between another group of kids. I came back. On time, every day, six days a week for eight hours, I came back.

I developed a relationship with several of the members of the girls' softball team. Most of them came to the center every day, whether they had practice or not, and spent most of their free time there. A few of them knew the center so well that they could basically play receptionist for me when I went to the rest room or even just needed some weight room time. It happened gradually, but after a few weeks, we were all playing catch every day, for at least an hour.

I know. Work sucks, right?

Today, I spent most of the morning cooking hot dogs for the tee-ball team, for our last game. It was bittersweet. So many of the kids relied on the tee-ball games and practices to force their parents to bring them. Its not that I'll never see them again. I will. Its that they won't come to the center as often as they should. Most of them are too young to be there without their parents or at least an 18 year old person to bring them. City rules. We'd all rather them be there. We'd be breaking the law if we let them come by themselves, not to mention the danger they would be in if they walked there by themselves. They'll be at home with nothing to do for much of the day.

We hadn't planned it, but because of a party for my supervisor's god-daughter taking place at closing time, most of the softball team, and therefore all of the girls I'd been playing catch with, had come to the center. Colleen, Marlina, Tess, Yeshan and Teja (the twins, also cousins of Marlina and second cousins to Colleen), and Gabby. We played our last game of catch today. We threw the ball for over an hour and a half and then sat in the shade for a while until Colleen and Gabby had to go inside to help get the party ready.

I didn't want it to end.

Call it vanity, but I don't think they did either.

I do plan on volunteering at the center as often as I can. I really got attached to the place. But it won't be like before, it won't be full time, and it won't be every day. Maybe not even every week.

My next Americorps program begins in September. Its not the same program, but similar, and I'm looking forward to it. I will be in more of an educator's role, and it will be a lot more formal. I won't be spending time with the same kids every day at the very least.

And I never thought I would miss playing catch so much.

-08/01/09