Reaching Home | Ninth Letter - Fall/Winter 2004

Reaching Home - Susan Perabo

The summer between kindergarten and first grade, when I was five years old, my father decided that I needed to learn about baseball.  He bought some baseball cards and would set them out in front of me.  He would point to one and I had to name the team.  I didn't know enough to understand that the team names were on the card.  I guessed based on uniform clues: "The Bears?" I asked when presented with the Cubs.  "The Friars?" when a Padre logo was placed before me.  (I knew what friars looked like thanks to Porky Pig's take on the role of Friar Tuck in the classic Robin Hood Daffy cartoon.)  My dad was frustrated.  I remember him yelling at me.

Then we sat down with a newspaper and he showed me the league and divisional breakdowns.  I had recently been looking at books about the Civil War, so I assumed the leagues were based on geography, specifically divided into North and South.  I grabbed a map and discovered that this wasn't true.  And there was a team in Canada!  Then I tried to understand the meanings of the team names.  What was the difference between the Reds and Red Sox?  What was a Dodger?

I was hooked.

Shortly after this, my dad bought me a glove and a ball, made of rubber.  He took me out to the street and we tossed the ball.  I never feared the ball.  I would stab the glove at it, knowing I had to snap it shut over the ball once I felt it hit.

My problem was throwing.  No matter how far away my father stood, the ball would drop right in front of him.  He got frustrated again, but he was more patient with me this time.  He told me to aim at his chest and not worry about overthrowing it or hurting him.  It worked.

We tossed everyday it seemed for a week or so.  Then he took me down to some ballfields where there seemed to be hundreds of kids throwing a ball around.  I was taken to a group of kids my age.  We played catch with some of the men standing around in sunglasses and baseball caps.  One guy, with aviator glasses, a raggedy red ballcap, a blue plaid short sleeved shirt, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, squatted down like a catcher and had a couple of us throw to him.  I had been following my dad's advice and whipping it at the chest of whoever I was throwing to.  Some of the kids couldn't handle it.  I did the same with this guy.  The ball popping into his mitt.  I remember him standing up and pointing at me and saying, "I think we found our pitcher."

This started my baseball career, which lasted through high school and then intermittently until I stopped playing in my early thirties.  Maybe, I'll write more on this so-called career later.  But for now, all of this little aside on the diamond of memory was caused by Susan Perabo's brilliant little essay on her own career in and love for baseball.

What a way to start the essay:  Ms. Perabo finds that she is in the Hall of Fame.  Yes, the one in Cooperstown.  Of course, it's only her name, but that would be good enough for me.  She is acknowledged for playing, no, starting, for a NCAA baseball team.

I'll leave it to you to read her story.  She tells it in a way that is absolutely believable.  She has not padded or romanticized the experience one iota.  Her love for the game and for her Cardinals is practically genetic.  If you love or have ever loved (because it's easy to understand why no one would love the game as it stands today) baseball, this is a good read.  If you don't care for baseball, it is still an entertaining read about gender and sports, and the pure joy in doing something for the sake of doing it.