Playing Catch
Ethan Bryan
“Why do you care so much about baseball? It’s just a game.”
Throughout the catch-playing year, I was asked this question hundreds of times. Why baseball? Why not politics or medicine or law? Why not cars or camping or hunting? Why not something that makes a difference in this world?
If you had asked me this question when I was eight, I would have answered, “Because it’s fun. It’s fun playing catch with Dad, and it’s fun hitting the ball and running the bases and sliding. Baseball is fun. When you’re eight years old, fun is the highest priority.
As we age, we forget for some reason how important fun is in keeping bodies and brains healthy. The stresses of daily life distract us and fun gets pushed farther and farther down the list of priorities. For some people, unfortunately, fun gets forgotten.
If you had asked me this question when I was fifteen, I would have answered, “Because I’m going to play for the Kansas City Royals.”
Playing baseball professionally was my dream. I attended a summer camp around the age of ten and met a former minor league player. He said, “Do you know the odds of anyone in this camp playing professionally? Maybe one, possibly two of you will have any kind of baseball future after high school.” Encouragement wasn’t really his forte. For the remainder of the camp, the group of boys I was with fought to prove which of us was the chosen one. None of us made it.
My dream of playing baseball professionally kept me invested in school. I wanted to be recognized as a “student-athlete.” My last game, however, took place in the summer of 1991. At sixteen years old, I had yet to hit my growth spurt; I was the smallest player on my team by far. I couldn’t throw as hard or fun as fast as my teammates. My coach told me I made the junior varsity team more for my heart than my skills. I always thought that statement was a compliment. At the end of the season, I reasoned that people who played professionally were more talented than I was. I didn’t know that making dreams come true is about having the tenacious courage not to quit when it’s really hard.
I gave up on my dream far too easily. To this day, quitting ball is one of my biggest regrets.
But I always knew where my glove was.
And playing catch with two people who worked in professional baseball helped me discover the answer to that oft-asked question.
After spending time with baseball professionals Dan and Martie, I found the words to answer the question so many catch-partners asked. Now if you ask me, “Why baseball?” this is how I will answer.
Baseball is a game of failure. This is the standard answer. But as a recovering perfectionist, I’ve found that learning how to experience failure and move forward is a good thing. Our culture is obsessed with overnight-success stories. We need to be reminded that failure is neither fatal nor final, just a necessary step for accruing wisdom. Failure can be part of the fun.
Baseball is a reminder of just how little control we have over anything. Fans cannot control whether their favorite team will win any more than the hitter can control the outcome once the ball is put into play. Do your best in that moment, regardless of the outcome. Breathe deeply and enjoy the experience, living into the fullness of the moment.
In baseball, you are not alone. You take the field and play as a team who, if you’re lucky, will love and support you like family through the highs and lows of a season. This world could use more of a team mentality in daily life, especially if we could learn to see that we’re all on the same team. When our teammates struggle, we’ve got their backs, through the highs and lows of life.
When I first started playing catch with Dad, it was about chasing baseball dreams. Playing catch back then was a way to sharpen my skills and practice all things related to the game—fielding pop-ups and grounders and throwing fastballs and curveballs. I treasure all my memories of playing catch with Dad.
On New Year’s Day, playing catch was something quirky and odd to share with my daughters, a chance to laugh and make a memory in the freezing weather. It transformed into an adventure all about people, an adventure of creating strong memories with family and friends new and old.