A Day in the Life of a Baseball Bat

I’ve always known I was born for greatness. Crafted from true-straight, fire hardened ash wood, worn smooth and gripped tight by eager hands. The Louisville Slugger of dreams - the bat that could send a baseball soaring into legend.

My brothers and sisters whispered about it constantly: “One day, you’ll crack a homer that echoes forever.” And for a while, it felt true.

Nino and Daniel are the reasons I exist. They loved me. They really did. Every afternoon, they’d drag me out, where the grass was patchy, but the light was perfect, and we’d play. For them, I was not a tool; I was a wand, a sword, a key to epic afternoons. I was born for this. Not for the sterile, pine-scented darkness of that denim bag in the garage. I was born for the dry, sweet crack of connection.

That day was perfect. The sun was like a high four-seam fastball, straight, hard and fast as the summer was whizzing by. The front yard their kingdom and an endless diamond. The strike zone was a big ‘ole silver maple. The home plate was that old goofy looking left-handed first baseman’s glove. First base was a leafy Rhododendron in front of the dining room window. Second base, the driveway curb and 3rd base was the cracked sidewalk next to the street and old sycamore.

I thrummed and hummed with the energy of it all-the shouted calls of excitement and argued strike zones. I loved hearing the thud of me hitting that tennis ball. And yes, feeling the late afternoon sun warming my whole body, from my head to my knob.

I lived in the hands of those two boys-Nino 11, the switch-hitting slugger and Danny 10, the disciplined swinger who could hit to both sides of the diamond. Crack! I’d eagerly wait to meet the ball and hear that sweet sound, sending it arcing over the black pavement over the old neighbor Joe’s lawn and onto the next street past the stop sign. Life was good.

He appeared on the porch, the “Man” rather their father, with tired eyes and arms crossed, holding a coffee mug like it was a gavel. “Boys,” he said, a voice calm but edged with that parental thunder rumble. “Boys, take it to the backyard. Now! Too many windows here out front. I just installed this brand-new full-glass storm door. It cost more than your PlayStation. Don’t make me regret this purchase.” He meant business.

The brothers paused. Nino nodded solemnly and said, “Okay, Dad.”

Danny saluted with me like I was a sword. They meant well. They really did. The front yard had the best pitching mound, a slightly raised bare piece of earth. It was perfect for dramatic game-winning homers. The backyard had their father’s garden with tomato plants, a fence and a next-door neighbor they didn’t care for. So naturally, we all stayed put. The game was here. The moment was now. The backyard was for little kids, for boring pop flies over the fence. The front yard was for heroes.

Nino was at bat while Daniel with his two-finger fast ball and determined squint pitched. Swing after swing. I was in the zone. But Nino had me that day. He was feeling heroic.

Danny wound up, I was low and outside, a tricky one. Nino twisted and grunted as he put everything into it and swung with all the untamed, chaotic force of an eleven-year-old rebellion. Nino’s hands, however, did not hold on. I felt that sweet spot connect - pure, beautiful contact. I sang as I connected with the tennis ball, a satisfying thwack that sent it sailing over the imaginary fence. I was a willing accomplice, as I arced through the air. For one glorious, terrifying second, I was free as I felt the wind whistle along my grain. I was flying, a missile of pure intention. My balance, usually so sure in his grip, went wrong.

I rocketed toward the street. I flew, soaring higher than any ball I’d ever launched. The sky was blue, the wind rushed past my grain, and I thought, this is it. This is the legend. They’ll tell stories about me, the bat that flew on its own.

I flew, end over end, a brown blur against the blue sky. I saw the house approaching, the brilliant afternoon sun reflecting off something vast and clear. The new front glass door that their father had just installed yesterday, humming as he worked, wiping away every fingerprint with a cloth. It was perfect, a seamless sheet of glass, a barrier between the wild, grass-stained poetry of the game and the military order of their cedar shake colonial home.

I had no say in my trajectory. I was a projectile, a fact, not a choice.

Then there it was: The Glass Door.

Then sound.

The sound was not a crash. It was an explosion of silence a crystalline rain. A million tiny diamonds, sharp and glittering, erupted onto the wood porch. A thousand wind chimes being murdered all at once. Shards rained down like tragic confetti. I landed with a rattle among those shards, stunned, my work done. And that tennis ball, rolling innocently to a stop by the steps, pretending it had nothing to do with any of this.

It was not a sound of a dry crack of wood on leather, nor the satisfying thwack of a line drive. It was a catastrophic sound, like icicles shattering at midnight, a sound so violently out of place it seemed to freeze the very air. My flight ended not in grass, but in a cascading rain of those glittering daggers. I clattered flopping onto the wooden deck of the porch, stunned, lying amidst the wreckage of the family’s weekend.

Silence, thick and heavy, fell. The world stopped. The birds quit singing. The brothers’ breath hitched in unison. I saw it all from the debris field. The brothers, statues of horror, their faces pale.

Their father appeared at the new, gaping hole where the door used to be. A ruined portal. A hole surrounded by a spiderweb of cracks. His eye twitched, just once but it was enough. He didn’t shout. He just stood there, his hands on his hips, looking from the glittering wreckage, to me, then to the two pale-faced boys frozen in the yard. I could see the muscle in his jaw working, a tiny, rhythmic pulse. He was straining, a dam holding back a flood of frustration and anger. He looked at the remnants of the door, then at me, lying pathetically on the welcome mat. Then again looking at his sons, he took a deep, slow breath that seemed to suck all the sound from the neighborhood.

Then his voice came, terrifyingly calm, flat as the now-vanished glass. “Go to your rooms. Now. No dinner. Now. It’s not even four o’clock, but you are done for the day. You are done. Get to Bed”

Nino whispered, “But Dad...”

“Bed! It’s three-thirty in the afternoon, but you’re going to bed.”

The brothers, without a word of protest, turned and trudged inside, a slow march of shame. Shoulders slumped, they trudged past him, carefully avoiding the jagged teeth of the door frame, careful not to step on the glass. They didn’t even look back at me.

He went upstairs and sent the other two younger siblings, a brother and sister to bed.

“Why do we have to go to bed too Dad?” they asked.

“Because you heard me tell them to stop playing in the front yard and to go play in the back and the both of you said nothing. So now you must pay the price too”

It was a war of attrition. It wasn’t even dinner time. The sun was still high, mocking them with its cheerful light. I lay there as the afternoon bled away. I heard the soft efficient sounds of cleanup: The brush sweeping, the clink of glass in the dustpan and the not so far-off bawling cry of children. Their father never said a word to me; he just picked me up. There wasn't anger in his touch, just a profound, weary finality.

I was carried back to the garage. The kingdom of the front yard was lost. I was once an instrument of flight, now I was the instrument of a lesson, grounded in the quiet darkness, waiting for a forgiveness I wasn’t sure would ever come.

After the broom had swept, he picked me up from the debris pile. His hands were different from Nino and Danny’s - larger, calloused from real work. He didn’t snap me over his knee, though I almost expected it. He just turned me over, examining my grain.

He carried me to the garage and placed me not in the trash, but back in the tall, dusty denim bag with the other balls and gloves. It was dark and quiet there.

I am a bat. I did what I was made to do. I swung. I flew. I changed the weather of a family’s Saturday. I waited in silence, knowing that tomorrow, or maybe the day after, small, familiar hands would find me again.

I guess greatness comes in different forms. Some bats hit grand slams. Others achieve eternal fame by demolishing an $800 storm door in spectacular fashion.

The game must continue on, but for now, we were all, very much, in-time out.

At least I went out swinging.