What began at 8am this morning with the chaos of 1,200 kids, 130 pickup trucks, 200 rolls of painter’s tape, and bales of multi-colored streamers scattered on the streets ended nice and neat. Single-digit numerals formed by lines of small, white lights on a “Fenway Park green” board. A symmetrically-framed photo with blue sky, palm trees and numbers on a new scoreboard.

Ahh, but there is so much more to this game than what the scoreboard tells us at the end.

Let me see if I can explain. For starters, ours was the first game recorded on this board. The lights flickered to life in the 3rd inning or thereabouts. The conscripted operator–one or another parent of one or another of our players–figured out by trial and error which flipped switch or depressed button makes a “1” and which makes a “0.”

Then there was my own baseball glove. My glove is new, too. Replacing another I somehow left behind at a field, absentmindedly, while in a rush a few months back. Our starting pitcher’s glove’s light coloring, the home plate umpire dictated, meant that the glove could not leave the dugout. It could go nowhere near the playing field. It would bewitch and bewilder the 11 and 12 year-old batters stepping to the plate. An unfair advantage.

So my new glove–serendipitously black in color–saw its first action on the mound today. The dark leather providing the perfect hiding place for our pitcher to fiddle with his grip on the ball’s seams, conjuring up the pace, spin and location that he and the catcher had just agreed upon in complete silence. A finger or two flashed by the catcher for a beat. An almost imperceptible nod or maybe just beginning the windup to indicate the pitcher’s approval.

New scoreboard. New glove. New team and new teammates. But a very old ritual between pitcher and catcher. Just one of dozens of similarly subtle intricacies involved with this game of baseball.

And I have the ridiculously good fortune of passing these intricacies on to this group of 6th and 7th graders over the next 90 days.

Or at least trying to pass the magic along. Each player brings different life experiences, different learning styles, different temperaments, different relationships with the coaches and teachers that came before me. Thirteen or fourteen seasons along, because of these variables, I still mis-calibrate my message with my medium, the substantive nugget skipping off the atmosphere due to my miscalculation.

Example. Today I realized in the middle of the game that I’ve been micro-managing the physical movements of one of our younger players at shortstop. My earnest advice shouted from the sidelines repeatedly is not sinking in. The body language I’m looking at out there is not the logical output of my incessant input. I misjudged him. His physical ability and consistently subdued affect masked the fact that he is still only 11 years old. Rather than inspire him with my energetic coaching, I’ve made him self-conscious, withdrawn now from manifesting what I have been asking him to manifest.

It’s only the first game, I tell myself. I can tweak my approach and try again in a few days. Something different will be required. I’m not sure yet what that will be. And that’s part of the magic of Little League coaching, at least for me.

Another example. The aforementioned pitcher with the aforementioned, illegally light-colored glove doesn’t smile much. Although I’ve only shared a field or batting cage with him for perhaps 3 hours in the aggregate at this early stage, I realized at 1pm today that I had not seen his teeth yet. He kept his emotions in check, and clearly I would have to work for it. I’m happy to put in the work.

And so I did. Calmly observing his bullpen warmup. Praising him on the good stuff. And carefully tweaking a couple pieces that were tweakable in the handful of minutes before he would throw the first pitch of the game. Finding a couple words or phrases that would serve to remind him of the subtle mechanical movements or maybe a mindset, that we keyed upon during his brief bullpen session and agreed he’d try to think about during the game.

He surpassed our fairly high expectations out there, throwing hard and throwing strikes for three innings.

And still, no smile. Not even as he was fairly showered in his teammates’ adulation and coaches’ “attaboys.” Some barely discernible refusal to let himself enjoy a moment, drop his guard in a safe place, or just be 11 years old.

The smile, when it finally came, was unexpected, spontaneous and so genuine. In the post-game huddle, the coach called out a few key data points that had contributed to our winning performance. This is usually a pretty fact-based recitation, not intended to stir the emotions so much as to identify what worked and what will require more work. The pitcher’s dominant performance was reiterated in this setting, and then I heard myself blurt out, “It must have been the glove!”

I don’t think anyone else on the team realized that the 11 year-old pitcher had to rely upon the 45 year-old’s black glove. But the pitcher and I obviously did. And my silly remark, bringing to light an inside joke that we now shared with the entire team, lit up his face. Huge smile, red cheeks, and a shared moment of recognition. I reached him.

I can’t wait for the next opportunity I have to hit that note again with him, and to solve the mysteries of his other 11 teammates over the course of the season.

It’s Opening Day, my 8th. And it feels great!

Thanks for reading.

This time I may have gone too far.

Email authors who could once be counted on for “C’est la vie” notes of support now verge on vitriol. The iconic “no worries” response is a thing of the past, apparently. I cringe, nowadays, when the auto-preview beneath the subject line populates with words that will bring a pit to my stomach. Yet another disappointee.

I need one of those big McDonald’s signs — “Over 300,000 People Disappointed!” instead of cheeseburgers served.

When it comes to my kids, I am a firm believer in holding doors open for them as long as humanly possible, until they are able to choose the doors to keep open themselves. I think my job is to give them options, to preserve their opportunities.

I am using every hand, elbow, foot, knee and chin to keep the doors from slamming shut. Sometimes I have to throw one open wide, pulling it with everything I have, then turning open another before the first swings shut again. Sometimes I am running down the hall at a full sprint, yanking on door knobs, shirt tails billowing, like some overdone dream sequence.

This seems most apparent when it comes to the sports my kids play. My 8 year-old Everett is just winding up his soccer and basketball seasons. I coached the latter, as I always have. But this past season I was physically present for perhaps only half of his games and practices. I’m not sure that made for a fair outcome for Everett, for the other players, or for our other coach.

I felt good about making it to their last practice last night. Managing to run a scrimmage and a few drills that maybe showed some objective improvement from the season’s beginning. There were quite a few smiles on the court, even.

Of course, in order to harvest those 8 year-old smiles with missing teeth, I had to short-change my older son.

Max is playing on a travel baseball team based in Marin County, across the Golden Gate Bridge from our home in San Francisco. The team practices three times a week. This frequency is actually new to our family. And I have heard of far worse schedules. Still, I haven’t quite mastered the art of being in two places at once. So I had to cobble together: A different school bus route than Max has ever taken in 8 years. A pickup at an unfamiliar bus stop in Marin. By a babysitter Max had never met before (nor had I). Who works with a (very generous, thankfully) family from Max’s new baseball team whom we barely know, and vice versa. A pre-game play date with said family’s son, one of the players on Max’s new team.

This all starts to feel like a convoluted game of Clue. The plan worked out fine, if fine is physically delivering Max to the appropriate field at the appointed time. And allowing me to coach Ev’s final YMCA basketball practice. Maybe the last such practice I will ever coach for Everett, since my basketball coaching bona fides are extremely thin.

And of course, Max had to miss his Little League practice that was being held across San Francisco Bay at the same time as he was running around on wet turf in Kentfield. His Little League coach (I am one of the assistant coaches) was understandably irked by Max’s absence. So I managed to disappoint Max and his coach with one fell swoop. Probably disappointed Everett, too, who complained that he got fouled a lot during his scrimmage and why didn’t I make the offending player cut it out.

My wife Hilary returned home that evening from an overnight work retreat. Typically I handle getting dinner ready for everyone. I’ve learned to relish this, turning myself into a decent cook over the years rather than viewing this as an unwelcome chore. But last night, given that Max’s baseball practice runs late, Hilary and Everett resorted to eating leftover pizza and birthday cake. The leftover pizza and birthday cake that we had served at Everett’s birthday party on Saturday.

That could have been a nice, uplifting point to end on. Save for the fact that Everett’s actual birthday was on December 6th. Saturday was March 1st. Three months later.

So like I said: Overextended.

Thanks for reading.

I am in love with my 8 year-old’s mind. I am frequently agog at the observations and proclamations emanating from his maw. His brain works differently than mine does; maybe different from any other brains I have encountered.

Take this morning. In the midst of an embarrassingly harried sprint out of our home to a soggy lacrosse game in Mill Valley, Ev chimes, “Every mime should know how to moonwalk.”

Say what?

Believe me, this commandment was completely and utterly out of the blue, unprompted, nothing to do with anything. I’m replaying the prior 30 minutes in my head right now, and there were zero hints. No Michael Jackson YouTube videos circa his blazing-scalp Pepsi commercial days. No Marcel Marceau biographies lying about the house. Nothing.

Where does he come up with this? I haven’t the slightest, and that’s the beauty of it. What other ideas are rattling around in there, to be popped out like the next bingo ball?

He has done this for as long as I can remember.

A few years back, around the time of President Obama’s first election victory, we were espousing the virtues of that historic development, in a high-minded NPR devotee type of way. You know, where you catch yourself speaking as if you were 30 years older, totally boring, out of body experience but you can’t help yourself. As we, or maybe I, continued prattling on, Ev brought his singular point of view to bear, instantly putting our preachy speech into perspective —

“Maybe I could be Obama,” he proclaimed from the backseat.

From his car seat in the backseat. I remember this clearly because that precocious comment caused me to snap my eyes up to the rear view mirror to discover just who the hell had just said that. I half-expected to see my still baby-ish son with different colored eyes, possessed by some older presence.

Nope, it was all Everett.

I can’t wait ’til the drive back home from this soggy lacrosse game in Mill Valley. God knows what’ll come out of his mouth next. I don’t want to miss a syllable of it.

Thanks for reading.

A San Francisco fixture I’ve long considered a kindred spirit passed away this week.  Sixty year-old Gregory Jacobs plied his trade with a couple Eucalyptus branches, a low growl, and clever hiding spots in plain sight.  Mostly he preyed (in a good way) on unsuspecting tourists who roam the streets of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf by the millions each year.  Jacobs would conceal himself behind the branches, squatting by a railing or trash bin, then scare the bejesus out of someone who happened to walk next to him.  Tips ensued, the frightened-then-relieved tipper happy to be alive, if still shaking from the quick adrenaline buzz.

I say “kindred spirit” because for as long as I can remember, I too have always relished (maybe not in a good way) giving someone a good scare.  In grade school, I took great pride in how many trick or treaters I could terrorize by launching out from under a pile of orange and red leaves optimally positioned near our Strathmore home’s Halloween candy distribution point.  Don’t get them on the way in, get them on the way out, when they’re relaxed, distracted, and convinced that no one is going to jump out at them at this house. That is the time to achieve maximum effect.  

Before you get too judgy, remember that I was a kid at the time, not a full grown man scaring kids.  Sheesh.

And it wasn’t just limited to Halloween.  My old house had tons of dark corners and alleyways, perfect for frightening my friends, on occasion even triggering a loosed bladder.  My friends would try to return the favor; try to catch me off guard as I had done to them. My friend David once lay in wait around a corner of my first floor stairs.  My unsuspecting father padded up said stairs. My unsuspecting friend was about to jump out at my unsuspecting father (thinking he was me).  I heard a “raaaaahhh!”  then a “SMAACK” of skin-on-skin punctured the air a millisecond later.  David stumbled back down the stairs, defeated, holding his hand to his cheek.  When he pulled his hand away, the red mark left by another hand (my father’s) was clearly visible.  

Loyal readers may recognize this instance as yet another example of my modern interpretation of Slapped Cheek Syndrome, by the way.  

My preoccupation with delivering a good scare has, on occasion, crossed the line.  I once terrified my considerably-younger cousin, Shane, with a midnight “zombie with arms outstretched” performance in his bedroom during a sleepover.  My Uncle Nate (Shane’s dad), rather than scold me, took his revenge the next night.  I awoke with a start at the sight of a zombie that was not me, with glow-in-the-dark, blood shoot eyeballs, no less.  Lesson learned:  Don’t scare kids who are considerably younger than you.  At least not the ones whose dads possess glow-in-the-dark, bloodshot eyeball pieces. 

Another time, I delivered a terrifying performance one evening while attending law school in Cleveland.  I crouched down at the innermost brick wall of our darkened garage, awaiting my guest’s car to pull into the garage any second.  Car pulls in, garage remains dark, I conceal myself away from throw of the driver’s headlights.  Driver steps out of car, unsuspecting.  I don’t just jump out and yell “raaaaah!”  I consider myself pretty good at this.  Instead, I crinkle some leaves.  Just loudly enough for the driver to wonder whether they actually heard something or just imagined it.  Then crinkling a little louder, and louder still, calibrating the volume of the crinkling to the increasing pace with which the driver is first strolling, then walking briskly, now running towards the front door of my rented house in a full panic. I give chase, my identity concealed by the fortuitous lack of a streetlight on our particular corner.  We are both at nearly a full sprint before the jig is up.  At which point I double over in high-pitched giggles, overcome with laughter.  The driver?  Not so much.  Lesson learned:  Don’t scare the young woman who would one day become your fiancee, then wife, then mother of your children.  She will have sixty some-odd years in which to plot her revenge.   

So enamored am I of the art of fright that I once “tried out” for a job as a Haunted House actor.  Sitting in a circle of other applicants, I hit my low point when my turn came to give my prospective employer my “best growl.”  Needless to say, I did not get the job.  Embarrassing still, some 20 years later.  Lesson learned:  Keep it spontaneous.  In the moment. You can’t manufacture a good scare where there is no genuine, good scare to be had. 

Which brings me back to the San Francisco Bushman.  His scare was genuine.  No matter how many times he rolled it out, I reckon each scare felt to him like his first scare.  His victims’ jumps, yelps, raised eyebrows, shouted curse-words — he probably lived for that stuff.  

He certainly caught me on more than one occasion; an amateur scarer shown the real deal by a Master Scarer.  And for a second or two every time he got me, I chuckled, reminded of what it feels like to be alive.  To feel something real, fight-or-flight style.  All the nonsense of the day-to-day stripped away in a moment.  Something that provokes hearty, childlike laughter.  From both parties.  I will miss that man.

The Bushman is Gone, Long Live the Bushman!

Thanks for reading.