Safe at First — May 23, 2023 - Johnny Boy Marketing

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Leg Pain 😧
Graduation 🎓
Orca Attacks ⛵

There was a precise moment on Saturday as I was moving this broken down, underused, untended nearly 49-year-old body down the first base line of a baseball field at McNair Park in St. Charles, Missourah, that I realized I was in trouble.

I was lookin’ mighty fine in my vintage 1860s-era St. Louis Brown Stockings uniform … or at least that’s how I like to imagine myself. I also was lookin’ for my first hit of the season after going 0-4 in my debut for the old-timey baseball team a few weeks ago and 0-1 to start this contest.

Here’s the thing: I grew up playing baseball. At one point, baseball was supposed to be what I did for a living. My elbow (and perhaps my lack of talent) had other ideas. From a very early age, I learned that, when trying to leg out an infield hit, you do not slow down when approaching first base. You go at a full-ass sprint, touch the bag and keep going, veering off to your right.

On this extremely beautiful Saturday afternoon, however, I remembered something very important when I reached about 10 feet from the first-base bag: That’s not how the game of baseball was played in the 1860s.

I say that this is important information because it is part of the reason I was a combined 0-5 at that point. The St. Louis Brown Stockings of today play by the rules of the St. Louis Brown Stockings of yesteryear. Among other things, that means that a fly ball caught on one bounce is an out, which is precisely what had happened to me on my first five at-bats of the season.

It also means that you can’t overrun first base.

If you do, it’s just as if you overran second base or third base, which is to say that you’re open to being tagged out and humiliated.

Here’s the thing: As mentioned, I’m nearly 49 years old. I do not take care of my body except for the fact that I eat pretty damn clean. I do not work out. I do not lift weights. I don’t Zumba. I occasionally go to a restorative yoga class, which is to yoga as napping is to a Saturday.

The wise thing to do upon realizing you’re running as fast as you can go at nearly 49 years old in pursuit of what truly would have been a meaningless base hit that did nothing to alter the course of any timeline for good is to just keep on truckin’, run through the bag and hope for the best.

Boy The Elder is extremely competitive. I say that at this point in the narrative not because I’m old and lost my train of thought. Stay with me.

As a small boy, BTE had a lot of trouble during what should have been friendly family games of Whiffle Ball with being out. He once tapped a hit back to me at the mound and I tagged him within two feet of home plate.

He insisted he was safe at first.

I tell you that to say this: The boy got his competitive streak from somewhere, and it ain’t Wifey Poo.

Back to the story.

The thought of actually running through first and leaving myself vulnerable to being tagged out was as impossible as me scaling Mt. Everest this afternoon. It wasn’t going to happen.

And so I decided to slam on the brakes.

Now here’s the good news: I was safe. More good news? We won both games of the double header, and I played really well.

The bad news? Quads and other assorted muscles, tendons and ligaments that haven’t been stretched or used vigorously for more than a decade should not be asked to perform the action of stopping an unrealistic, zealous, nearly 49-year-old man within that short of a distance.

And so it comes to pass that it is Tuesday morning and I am walking around like I have to poop right now, which is to say that I look ridiculous. My right knee is on fire when I step a certain way. My quads are angry. “How dare you?” they scream.

And rightfully so.

I see pictures of Babe Ruth from his glory days. He was fat. And he was the best damn baseball player to ever live.

Apparently, I am not Babe Ruth.

My Favorite African graduated from kindergarten yesterday. This, despite the fact that he has two more days of school. It’s a mad, mad world these days.

MFA has spent a few months in his current elementary school after attending a school in Pennsylvania at his previous host parents’ home for the beginning of his school career. School is why we’re doing what we’ve been doing since 2021 with him. In Burkina Faso, there is no Americans With Disabilities Act that ensures his ability to attend and move around a school despite what had been his inability to walk on his feet. There are no protections against discrimination. Children in situations like what he was in are often destined to be beggars on the street.

Which is why we became host parents.

So to see pictures of him graduating with his class, to hear him talk about his excitement about going to school back home in Burkina … it kind of makes all those challenges that come with caring for any 6-year-old, let alone one with mobility and other assorted issues, extremely worth it.

Robin, I Owe You Some Quarters

(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to Vanilla Ice. Stop. Collaborate. Listen.) The first indication I had that girls are complex came at the ripe old age of 6. I…

Safe at First — May 23, 2023

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