Topic: Athleticism

Author: Chris Dunn

The coach looked down the bench to where I was sitting tracking pitches, hitters, runs and errors, all in an intricate code I had just been taught. “Dunn,” he called. “You want to go in?” I looked up at the field and suddenly it changed from a structured repository of facts and data into a swirling dust cloud of chaos and sweat. Injuries were possible. Exertion certain. But the worst part was that I wouldn’t be able to complete my statistical analysis of the game. With only an inning to go, it seemed a disservice to my efforts to that point. Screwing my face shut with indifference, I gave him the wave-off I’m sure he was hoping for, “That’s okay?” I said. Later, when my mother caught my eye from bleachers, I gave her my most convincing, helpless shrug, as if to say, “Hey, don’t ask me what’s going on?” I me, I did, from a statistical perspective. I had the pencil scratches to prove it, but as far as why I was there on the baseball field, I was beginning to wonder.

I cannot justifiably be accused of never having tried sports. I did try, or at least I tried to try, but I never quite grasped the point. Maybe it’s because I was never on a winning team. Maybe it was my poor hand to eye coordination or small stature. Who can say? I certainly was no prodigy.

My basketball career lasted all of two games. I didn’t like the coach. He was loud and overbearing. And at an age where, I was lucky to run ten steps without tripping over my own feet, he expected me to keep my head up, bounce a ball the size of that head in-and-around boys twice my size until I could either pass it off or throw it embarrassingly far from the tiny ring I was aiming for. My answer for this sport was simple, whenever someone passed me the ball, I passed it right back and ran away. I got maybe ten minutes of floor time in my pair of games, and when my mom asked, “Do you not want to do this?” For once, I found my courage and answered clearly, “I do not!”

Soccer was more my speed. Eleven players on a side, the chance you would be involved in the game was greatly diminished. Still, if you were on the field, sooner or later the ball would come to you. Dribble it a bit, pass it off, try to get in the way of the guy coming at you – fast! Man, they were fast. And again, there was that thing, running and kicking the ball at the same time. Who thought this was fun? I quickly went from forward to halfback to fullback to bench. Jumping in to sweat out my soccer association mandated quarter each game, all the while praying fervently that I would not do something to lose the game for us.

Baseball worked for me until pitchers learned how to find a strike zone, then I was done. My first two years I had no batting average and around fifteen stolen bases. “Be a hitter!” the coach would yell, his hands clapping furiously. I’d nod and stare out at the pitcher with false focus, aping the motions and stances of the boys before me, but I’d been watching. I’d done the math in my head. Seven attempts, and three out of the seven had to hit the sweet spot, from that distance. We were ten years old! Nobody could do it, not on a kid my size anyway. And even with pitchers who were good enough to come close on occasion, my swatting at the ball with a piece of wood wasn’t going to make any difference. Typically, by about the fifth or sixth pitch, I was on my way down to first. Grabbing second or third was usually easy enough, no catcher had the arm or the accuracy if you got a decent jump. Fielding was another matter entirely, and why I never got more than one or two at-bats per game despite what would now be called an amazing on-base percentage.

Fortunately, my parents never pushed me toward football.

To be honest, I don’t know why they pushed us into sports at all, neither of them had glory day yarns. Being from New England my father’s sports stories revolved largely around yachting. My mother couldn’t ride a bike and had broken her arm her one and only time on roller skates. So, it wasn’t like the family had an honored history to uphold... I think it came more from the schools. The leagues would come into class and make their pitch, and everyone would get excited. “Are you playing this year?” asked my peers. “Sure, yeah,” I agreed not knowing to what. And I went along with it, for years, waiting for something to click, to make it all make sense. It never did…

Until one day, I told the coach I wasn’t feeling well, and he let me ride the bench. As I sat there beside him watching the rest of the guys run and slide in the dirt, I looked over at the book he was always scribbling in. Though I tried to be sly, he caught my surreptitious gaze. “It’s a score book,” he explained. “Here let me show you…” In no time, he handed it off to me, and I was entranced. So many minor things to keep track of. All the focus, tracking every pitch, every out, every error.

“Are you sad you didn’t get to play today?” my mother had asked as we walked home. No mom, you don’t understand. I got to keep score!