Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [100]
I have forgotten much of what he said that day, but I recall how his words hurt. They also toughened my hide, which was his purpose all along. Dad shared a trait with that father in the Johnny Cash song who named his son Sue so he would grow up a fighter. And he still knows how to wield the needle. The other day, I phoned to tell him how I had hurt my wrist and he said, “Gee, son, I figured you hurt that thing a long time ago, what with all the shit you’ve been slinging from the mound.”
I have no doubt he loves me deeply. All those hours he spent teaching me the game, showing me how to hunt and make my own way in the world represented his way of expressing how much he cared. When Dick Williams invited me to try out for the Padres in 1984, my father got so excited, he grabbed a mitt and called me outside for a catch. He wanted to help get my arm in shape. I stood at one end of the yard while Dad squatted on his haunches and raised his mitt.
My first pitch got on him a little too high. A little too quick. His 64-year-old hands could not raise his glove in time. The ball hit him a glancing blow off the top of his cap and rolled away. Left a small bump on his forehead. He stood up, told me to retrieve the ball, and went inside. I could see that muffing the catch embarrassed him. He spent the rest of the afternoon unusually quiet. Dad did get over it by dinner— that’s his way—and when we discussed the incident recently, he even laughed. “That,” he said, “was a pretty dumb thing for me to do.”
I didn’t think so. You grow up wanting your father to be your hero, to be the best at everything. Dad seldom failed at anything he attempted, and I have looked up to him my whole life. Yet I cannot remember admiring my father more than that day when he tried to catch me even though his hands could no longer keep up with my speed. My career meant that much to him. He is a man of high integrity and character, and I am proud to call him my father. I understand that he comes from a generation of males who never learned how to articulate affection, who thought fathers were always right and that saying “I’m sorry” to anyone but particularly to a slighted son was a sign of weakness.
The John Wayne code.
That is something he and his father passed on to me as well. My son Michael constructed his first hunting bow from scratch shortly after turning fourteen. One day, his brother Andy and sister Katy ran into the house to tell me Mike was shooting at chipmunks with it. “Don’t worry,” I said, “those things are so small, he’ll never hit one.” Fifteen minutes later Mike came cartwheeling into the kitchen carrying his kill.
“Goddamnit,” I screamed, “don’t you ever shoot anything you can’t eat!” Mike blanched. He could not understand what he had done to make me so angry. I ripped into him for a good ten minutes. We didn’t speak the rest of the night. All through the silence, I knew I had behaved badly. Part of me wanted to go to him and say, This is my fault. I should have said something to you in advance, told you not to shoot at the chipmunks, but I made the mistake of thinking you couldn’t hit anything with that bow.
But that’s not what I know.
It’s not what I learned.
You see, my father had yelled the very same thing at me when I was fourteen and shot a blue jay out of a tree with a .22 at a hundred yards. He didn’t think I could hit that target either.
Twenty years have passed since Mike killed that chipmunk. I still haven’t said I’m sorry. Let me do that now. No. Let me do more than that. I want to say, Mike, there is so much of me in you. You try to please me just as I tried to please my own father. It is not necessary. You have a wonderful wife and family. You work a job you love, and live your life on your own terms, and you