PITTSBURGH — I’m not a pitcher. But the first time I made my dad step back with a fastball, I felt like I grew up that day. My hand was finally big enough to impact the ball’s trajectory and cause bite.
It was 1978. I was ten years old. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to catch these things,” said my already elderly father, who two decades later would deny that he had said anything of the sort until I was at least 14.
How many kids have carried American baseball since it was formed in the latter half of the 19th century? How many people have felt those stitches under their fingers while their palms were covering the smooth white skin? How many people have swung a small bat—wooden, then aluminum, now graphite—connected it to a softer toddler baseball, a “T-ball,” and felt that unique thrill of kinetic energy and probability?
Baseball, in the end, is all about the ball. In the pantheon of the national pastime, the bat and glove – while important – are only a supporting cast. The ball stays forever in the center. Spinning, swaying, weaving. Powder, high, gold.
Baseball itself is a strange thing. One of them killed a man once, Ray Chapman, in 1920. These days dozens are used in a single big-league game.
There, Nakia appears on the field from the referee’s waist bag. From there, it is delicately, lovingly and carefully caught by one player, who arranges the fingers in this way and treats the leather ball like a pristine for a few seconds. It is then handed to another player, an opponent who carries a large stick and tries aggressively to knock the bigezos out of it. You have to feel this little ball.
When I moved overseas in 1979, I met an old man who had once interviewed Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters in the game. He—the man, not Williams—knew I was homesick for baseball in particular. When I got the ball and glove out, he said something like, “As long as you have a baseball, you’re home.”
I still pack one everywhere I go. To me, it’s America encapsulated – burning a hole in my glove or jacket pocket, waiting for the right time, ready for the next big game…the catch.
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Ted Anthony has written about American culture for The Associated Press since 1992. This story is part of a recurring series, “Things American,” marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.