Diamond in the Rough

Baseball has always been a magical game. Just to watch a ball fly through the soft summer air is at once exciting and serene, and even more so when you have a little leaguer. Unfortunately this season has been anything but magical for our team in the standings of the North Oakland Baseball Federation.

I’ve been coaching kids long enough to find the positive in almost any situation, but all of us are just about ready for the season to be over, at least until next year. There’s nothing I love more than watching my son play baseball, but now, eliminated from any post season activities, we’re just rounding out our schedule - making up a couple of rain-outs from earlier in the spring.

We’d tried scheduling tonight’s game a couple of times before, but hadn’t gotten it played. And now that we finally made it to the field through rush hour traffic, there was some more bad news: we had no umpires. Playing a game for two hours in the hot sun at the end of a disappointing season is difficult enough. But playing a “meaningless” game without umpires? What would be the point? We might as well just go home.

But this is baseball and there are no meaningless games. The coaches decided to ask a couple of dads in the bleachers to come down and call balls and strikes. And to prove that there is still a little baseball magic left in our season, one of the dads who took the field to umpire at home plate was Detroit Red Wing Darren McCarty.

What had seemed like a day of going through the motions was suddenly a joy for our team. A buzz moved through the stands and down into the dugout of 11-year-old ball players who were now sharing the field and playing a game with one of their hometown heroes and a Stanley Cup Champion.

And he was good, too. He called a strong game and knew the rules. Probably didn’t miss any calls, either. Although I don’t think anybody was going to argue with him if he had. And at one point, when he threw up his arm to signal a ground rule double and had to clarify his ruling to the opposing coach, he added “Hey, I’m not just here for show!”

Jesse was playing shortstop and during one of our pitching changes, Detroit’s number one tough-guy came over and chatted with him.

“Are you done with school?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jesse said.

“What are you doing this summer, just baseball?”

“Yeah, hockey’s over,” Jesse informed him.

“Oh, you play hockey? What position do you play?” Darren asked.

“Center.”

“You look like a center,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Jesse.”

“Hi, I’m Darren McCarty.” And then he said “Play ball!”

In the end, we played hard, but lost the game in our last at-bat. But on a night where nothing special was supposed to happen, with our season coming to an end, the game of baseball produced another memory for my son and his teammates that they will keep for the rest of their lives. There are no meaningless games and no wasted days at the ballpark. Because every day you get to play on that field is a gem, even if it might be a diamond in the rough.

Fred Nahhat is DPTV Director, On-Air Fundraising