Baseball with Tobin

Tonight we took Tobin to his first baseball game. The Durham Bulls beat the Richmond Braves 8-2. His parents and Walsh grandparents had a nice, pleasantly cool night at the park. Tobin was great. He seemed to like the music -- and he even slept a little.

I tried to explain to him that Richmond's starting pitcher was struggling with his location because of poor mechanics on his drive leg, and as you can tell from the picture and the look on his face, he seemed to appreciate my fatherly nugget of wisdom.

It meant a lot to me to take him to a baseball game. I think of Papa (my mom's dad) a lot when I watch baseball, and when I coach it. I've decided to take a break from coaching for a while. As much as I have loved coaching, it's not a difficult decision to give those 20-25 hours a week to Tobin instead. But tonight, being outside with the game in front of me and my son beside me was unspeakably good. Walt Whitman wrote about baseball before it was blown out of proportion by the big leagues. I looked it up to be sure I quoted it correctly:

Baseball will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.

Before I thought about it tonight, I always ascribed that "Repair these losses" line to the Civil War, but tonight it made me think about how much I loved--and love--Lee Yardley, and how much I love Tobin Lee. And to a much lesser, though still significant degree, how much I love the game of baseball.