Daddy Days: Passing on the love of baseball – Austin American-Statesman

We’re smack-dab in the middle of another season of baseball. Baseball was a big part of my childhood. It’s funny though, because after I wrote that, I thought through the years I played Little League as a kid and I only played baseball for five or six summers. Yet, it feels like I always played baseball.

The smell from the jasmine vines on the left field fence wafting across the diamond as I daydreamed in the outfield. The perfect white chalk lines down the base paths. The taste of sunflower seeds cracking in my teeth or absurdly oversized gobs of Big League Chew bubble gum. These were the things of baseball. These were the things of summer.

I’ve started to share my appreciation for the game with the boys. The 4-year-old and I play throw-and-throw. For you baseballs folks who think that’s a typo and should have said throw-and-catch, I should explain that he doesn’t know how to catch. He can throw like a 6-year-old, but he catches like a turtle.

I’ve taken the older two to several Round Rock Express games this summer. Those trips have been great, albeit fraught with the standard issues of any trip away from the house for more than an hour. There’s a lot of “I’m tired” and “I’m hungry” complaints. Also, “I’m tired because I’m hungry because I dropped my hot dog.” Twice.

The 4-year-old learned some baseball terminology and how to tell which inning we were in. This was partly due to an ill-advised parenting trick I used where I said I’d get him a treat in the fourth inning to try and keep him engaged. Well, it turned into one of those 45-minute third innings where he just impatiently waited for the three on the scoreboard to change to a four.

The biggest downside to the game is the fireworks. That probably sounds odd to most people, but if I reframe this from the perspective of the 4-year-old, perhaps it won’t. His least favorite part of the game is when, without warning, incredibly loud explosions rock the stadium and reverberate through his 40-pound body, and then the thousands of strangers around him all start screaming at once.

To you and me, a home run has been hit, yay! To him — we’re under attack! His view, of course, is in the minority, and even his younger brother is a fan of the fireworks.

Both the boys love the between-innings games and contests. The 4-year-old actually starts talking about the burrito shuffle game before we even get to the stadium. (This is a game where three cowboy hats are shown on the Jumbotron and you have to guess which one the burrito ended up under after shuffling them all around.)

When a ball is fouled back out of the stadium and into the parking lot and the announcer plays the sound of a donkey braying or a cow mooing — they absolutely lose it. They think this is the funniest thing since peek-a-boo.

As much as they like the entertainment at the ballpark, I’m not sure how interested the boys will actually be in baseball. Who knows, by this time next year the oldest may be wrapping up his first season of tee ball. Or maybe he’ll have officially given up on catching and taken up soccer.

I guess with kids, just like when daydreaming in the outfield, you just never know what might come your way.