Flippers and Falsies for the Disney Set

I've been reading The Corrections during my commute to work. It's good and I'm been enjoying it, uncomfortable with but reveling in how claustrophobic and anxious all Franzen's iddly, paranoid characters make me feel. Yesterday after work, rapt with Alfred and the bullying turd, I missed my stop and had to hike a little extra to get home. (The exercise, I figured, couldn't hurt, as I've noticed recently that stairs get me flushed and send my heart revving—and not just because I know Sweetpea lives at the top of those stairs and I'm taking them two and three at a time.)

On the stroll home, I stopped at the park where a couple little league games were in progress. On one field were the tee-ballers, the real tiny guys who corkscrew wildly in the batter's box dirt when they whiff over the top of the ball and whose too-big helmets go all bobblehead as the tinies weave toward third after a hit.

Older kids, maybe grade threes or fours, junior White Sox and mini Reds, were playing on the next field over. We had uniforms back when I was a little league pitcher and weak-hitting infielder, but they weren't, like, real MLB team uniforms. Usually we got a blue or green or red t-shirt with "Philips Siding and Awnings" screenprinted above our numbers on the back. One year we got actual jerseys with our names on the backs and pinstriped pants to play in. I took extra time getting dressed on game days when I had that uniform, making sure the shirt was tucked and and all the seams straight, and hiked up the pants el Duque-style to show off the cool black stirrups. In that uni, I was Ted Williams and George Brett and my Dad all at once. I was badass.

I think, down the road a bit, if I have kids, that baseball in the summer would be great fun, if they want to play. Grammar-school beauty pageants, however, are completely and indisputably out of the question.