Diamonds of a Different Kind Bond Fathers, Sons

Given the complexities of life in the modern world, it is not surprising that the beauty of simplicity gets overlooked.

But Sunday, Father’s Day, simplicity, and in turn beauty, was Minor League Baseball.

As for many home games, fans spilled into the red-backed bleachers of tiny G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium home of the Potomac Cannons, but prominent among that sight were scenes of small children clutching a father’s hand, or balanced against his hip, or riding his shoulders and playing the tom toms with his head. On this paternal holiday the game of baseball was bringing families together.

The game itself, a 4-1 victory by the Frederick Keys over the Cannons, was largely unexciting. The Cannons top offensive player was missing from the lineup and the bottom three hitters of their order were flirting with the Mendoza Line of a .200 batting average. But given the smiles and the giggles inside the stadium, you’d never know that this game was as ordinary as the next.

While pitchers added to their ever-increasing and incalculable pitch totals and batters reached base for the 70th time this season, something far more magical was taking place in the stands. Rules were being taught, history recounted and memories formed on the strength of a game played on a diamond on a sunny day.

Growing up in the middle of Georgia, Warren Short of Arlington, Va. remembers sitting next to his father and watching Phil Niekro pitch at the now abandon Fulton County Stadium. Now his own son, Reid, 7, sits by his side, glove at hand, watching another generation of ballplayers on the field.

Reid would like to be a professional baseball player, a catcher at that. His Babe Ruth coach has told him that he does a good job keeping the ball in front of him. His father smiles as Reid recounts the compliment. But there’s a hint of trouble on the horizon.

What team does he want to play for professionally?

“It better be the right one,” Warren jokes.

“The Orioles,” Reid says. His father’s head slumps, but he smiles all the same.

What was the right one?

“The Braves,” Reid says.

Throughout the park, scenes like this one are played out for nine innings.

A pitcher from the Keys’ bullpen tosses a ball into the stands and into the eager hands of a father, who hands the ball to his son, who is now trying to negotiate holding the ball as well as a rapidly melting Popsicle. But he refuses to let go, clutching it as tightly as any new gift under the Christmas tree. An heirloom in less than a second. Frozen juice stains be damned.

And the father beams.

Simple.

A leather-covered ball of yarn, with a rubber center, closed with 216 red stitches.

Simple.

It’s a thousand times simpler than any Game Boy, Xbox, or even action figure around, but the experience makes it so much more.

It’s the same thing that makes a hot dog and soda seem like the best meal on the planet when you’re sitting in a ballpark. Tell a child what’s inside a baseball and he may not even want it. For that matter the same could be said for the hot dog. But hand him one at a ballgame, from the hand of his father, and he won’t let go of it all the way home, checking out each paint mark and pine-tar stain as he sits in the back seat. Maybe while the Game Boy lies unused at his feet.

It really could not be simpler.

Men on a field, playing with a stick and a ball, putting smiles on the faces of fathers and sons alike. That is a very beautiful sight indeed.