Wanna Play Catch? Part 2

My Sister

“Oh my gosh you idiot I love you sooooo much I want to play catch with you!!! Ask me, ask me. I still have the memory of us playing catch outside the Point Loma townhouse in the courtyard in summer and it was so much fun!”

That’s the exact text I received from my sister when she stumbled upon my Facebook post about wanting to have a catch with someone. I was thrilled to get it. But also slightly embarrassed. She should have been the first person I asked. Because baseball and softball were and are an integral part of my sister’s life. Mine too, but she was far more participatory than I was. By a lot.

I think I may have played two years of Little League growing up and maybe filled in for a friend a time or two in a coed beer league before hanging up my cleats for good. She played softball under the tutelage of our father for her entire childhood and adolescence. A softball scholarship is what helped pay her way through college. And now, she coaches her own daughters.

I was also embarrassed because I had somehow misplaced the memory she mentioned of her and I playing catch when we lived together briefly as adults in San Diego. But it came rushing back after reading her text.

I wasn’t particularly close to either of my sisters growing up. I was older, and there was just enough of an age gap for me to not be terribly interested in hanging out with them, but not large enough to entice me into being a doting big brother either. I was also an asshole. Things got significantly better as young adults. We all lived together briefly and got to reintroduce ourselves in some new and wonderful ways.

But this sister and I have some contrasting views on things like religion, world affairs, politics, culture, etc, and approach life in markedly different ways. We try to avoid hot-button discussions, or at least I do, to the greatest extent possible. Between that and my natural hermit-like nature and tenuous overstimulation threshold, we don’t hang out a lot. But when I received that text, I took the two-hour drive down to her house just two days later.

We started playing catch in her front yard and I was instantly reminded of her elevated skill level. Even a casual throw from her had hair on it, and I was forced to perk up pretty quickly lest I misplay one of those heaters and wear it on the side of my head. She would even subconsciously give her upper thigh a confident slap with her glove after each heavy two-seamer she sent my way.

We talked and got caught up on everything. Then my youngest niece, who has historically only ever presented me with a low-temperature shoulder, came out to play. I was not expecting that. Given that she was her mother’s daughter, however, I was not too surprised to see how well she threw. I would later compliment her ability and she responded with a warm “thank you” and a smile. Which left me in a very pleasant state of shock as it was the first time I saw her teeth displayed in a non-threatening manner.

We eventually adjourned inside and I watched my sister go about the business of breaking in my new glove. Treating it with a spray foam of some sort before placing it in the oven. Then having me put it on and work it over a bit. This was followed by her careful application of oil and a rubber banding of the glove’s webbing around a baseball, all to be removed at a later date.

We may not see eye to eye on a lot of things, but in addition to dutifully breaking in my glove for me, she has always been the first person to rush to my side when I was in trouble. To offer assistance, circle the wagons, or help me back up when I needed it the most. That’s real love. That’s the shit that matters, and I need to remember and be grateful for it. And tell her that. Because there are two more things that I know about us - we both love baseball. And more importantly, we both love each other.

Wanna Play Catch? Part 1