Party Favors: Peanuts & Cracker Jack

It was somewhere between the ages of seven and eight that I first discovered baseball. Of course, what began as a discovery quickly grew to an interest and then to a … I don’t want to say “obsession”; I’d like to think I’m not completely unbalanced. I guess it suffices to say that I have a lobe of my brain dedicated to baseball.

So with my son past 7 and most of the way to 8, I harbored a secret hope that soon I would have someone in the house with whom to share this common interest, someone to educate (not to say indoctrinate, exactly) in the ancient tribal wisdom….

Little did I know it would be my daughter.

As she reaches her fifth birthday today, my girl shows a keen interest in all things baseball. Much to her mom’s consternation, I have only to murmur to her, “Guess what’s on TV tonight?” and she shouts, “Baseball!” I promise, I’m only trying to give her access to something she likes –it’s not for me! Well, OK, maybe a little.

When we have some free time together, her brother is liable to ask me to play cars with him or read a book; she usually asks either to play baseball (by which she mostly means pitch to her) or play catch with her. She has her own glove, which I bought at a garage sale, but would much rather use brother’s glove, which is in fact a bit nicer. I have gotten pretty accomplished at both tossing and pitching to her right where she can reach it, but frankly I think her skills are developing to the point that she may not need the crutch much longer. We may still have to discuss the concept of running the bases; when she hits, she often takes off running in whatever direction is handy, as long as she can circle back around before I can tag her.

It has actually come to the point where frequently one of the first things she says to me each morning is, “Dad, who won the Mets game last night? How many did the Mets have? How many did the other team have?” If the Mets lose, she gets quite disappointed, but has taken to compensating for that by declaring that she actually likes all the teams. I have been telling her that she is free to like any team she likes (but Dad really does not like the Yankees).

When the time came to buy birthday presents, we put our heads together, and the answer that kept coming up was Baseball Stuff. I feel like one of those horrible obsessed parents trying to push my kid into a sport, but the more we thought about what she would really want, the more we came back to baseball.

So she got a set of bases, and a pitch-back (so she can play catch with herself!), and some T-balls, which are a bit heavier than she’s used to – easier to catch, actually, but still a bit squishy. My mom was given a final idea, which she couldn't find herself and asked me to purchase on her behalf – but since I rarely get out of the house solo, I had to take my daughter with me last week. When she saw it, she wanted it instantly, so I couldn’t really misdirect her and buy it behind her back. She didn’t even want to let go of it.

So quickly shifting gears, I told her that this was really a birthday present from Grammy & Pop-Pop, but I would give it to her right then; this prompted every parent’s most cherished reward: sparkling eyes and crushing hug. And since that moment a week ago, she puts it in her bedroom every night so she can have it first thing in the morning… but other than that, it’s been next to impossible to pry her brand new Mets baseball cap from her head.