Kevin Ryan
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1239 Words

THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD

The people who know me know how much pleasure I get spending time with my family and, most especially, my children. They are such wonderful things and, being an accountant during the tax season, I have not had as much time as I would like to do that as of late. Unfortunately we, as a society, get too lost in "bringing home the bacon" and sometimes lose perspective in which the bacon is being brought home for.

Yesterday my wife and I took our three-year-old son to his first baseball game. The happiness on his face when he found out he was going was something, as all parents know, remarkable. Of course, as you parent out there know we didn’t tell him until after he had taken his nap. The purpose of this was for him to actually take his nap. Excitement does not go well with naps. He really didn’t understand where he was going. He just knew we were going somewhere and that’s usually fun. Lately, he had not spent too much time with "Daddy" because I had to work so much. So being able to spend some "quality time" with his father meant a lot to him. I noticed the smile on his face and the exuberance in his voice at being able to have a family outing.

I had ordered tickets in advance and we took off Saturday afternoon to the park to see the Nashville Sounds, a AAA farm team of the Pittsburgh Pirates. There was a rainout the previous Thursday night so we were going to get to see a double-header for the price of one game. Would the little one make it until ten at night when his usual bedtime is seven thirty? That was the big question. Would he be able to sit through two whole baseball games when he had never been to one of anything without getting bored? We took our seats, which were three rows behind the plate. I chose that because we were behind the screen and foul balls would be harder to hit him, plus, being a former catcher myself, I liked seeing the pitched balls coming in.

At first he was a little scared. Think about it. You’re first time walking into a ballpark. The sheer magnitude of the size. The manicured grass. The players all out on the field dressed the same, throwing baseballs around. The sounds of the park: the vendors hawking drinks, candy and beer, the organ music between innings and every time something happened on the field, the roar of the crowd. But he loved it! His eyes were zoomed to all the sounds and actions that were happening, taking it all in and processing it in his little mind. And I saw that! I tried to remember what it was like when that happened to me. When my parents took me to my first ballgame and how I took it in. I couldn’t remember it. I imagined what it was like as I watched my son. Did I think the same as he? Was I in awe like he was showing?

At one point during the first game, as we were talking to him about his first baseball game, a gentleman slightly behind us made a comment to my wife. He was working for the other team charting the pitches of his team’s pitcher as well as Nashville’s. The other team, by the way, was the Oklahoma Redhawks, a farm team for the Texas Rangers. The gentleman had asked my wife if this was indeed my son’s first baseball game. She said that it was and thought nothing else about it as my son just smiled and continued watching the game. In between innings this gentleman called out to his dugout for on of the team members to bring him out an ball. When they did what was asked he gave the ball to my son. His first official baseball! His first official baseball at his first official game! Can you imagine that? Did that ever happen to you? Do you remember it? I tried to. I couldn’t. My son took the ball and said thank you, a kindly gesture I can only credit my wife for. My son, if nothing else, has been taught to be polite and I was proud of him for that. But he looked at it as a gift. He didn’t understand. This was an official baseball from an official baseball game! We understand. He just looks at it as a gift and was happy someone did something nice for him. That simple! We understand what a huge thing that is for a little boy! What a huge thing that would be for a big boy likes us! I thanked the gentleman over and over and he said it was no big deal. It was a huge deal! Later, after I found he was one of the Redhawks pitchers that were on the injured reserve list, I asked him if he would mind autographing the ball for my son. He did with a smile on his face. An autographed official ball at his first baseball game!

Think about it. Here we were. Fans of the team that was there to beat his team and that didn’t matter to him. He saw a little boy that was going to his first ballgame and, apparently, it touched his heart enough to do what he did. In these days and times how often does that happen? What would you do if you still had the first baseball you ever got that came from the first ballgame you ever attended and it was autographed? Would you sell it? Well then you don’t understand what I’m talking about. These are things that can’t be bought. They come only with the goodness of others and this person, a stranger, took it upon himself to do it. You can bet I’m going to be following this guy’s career and cheer him on at every chance. As my son grows up he probably won’t remember the magnitude of what happened as I did but I will tell him the story and he will tell his children as he passes the ball down another generation and, hopefully somewhere, the gesture will be repeated over and over to children everywhere.

The game? We lost both of them but that didn’t matter. My son stayed awake and refused to leave because they were showing a fireworks show afterwards, something else he had never seen, and he wasn’t missing that. Once again, I saw the awe in his face of newness of experience. Did I look like that the first time I ever saw fireworks?

How do you make a child’s face glow? I found out last night and I lived it with him. In him, I remembered, only for a brief moment, what it was like when I was his age. Our children are not just our future but also our past. Let us remember what it was like when we were their age, the experiences we are putting them through and how we reacted to those same experiences. Because if we can do that then maybe, just maybe, we can start treating each other better and teach our children, by our example, how people should treat others and maybe, just maybe, our future as human beings can be guaranteed.

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