For use: Sunday, July 20, 1998

Future Shoes

The boys and dads of summer

by Michael Finley
Exclusive to St. Paul Pioneer Press

Copyright (c) 1998 by Michael Finley; all rights reserved.

My 10-year-old son Jonathan has been vacillating all summer between his two great loves, baseball and computer games. One day he's digging out ground balls for his team the Comets, and the next he's locked in interstellar combat in a long-ago galaxy far, far away. He's lucky, because he can switch back and forth.

Last week he couldn't switch back and forth, because he spent it bunking in Centennial Hall at the University of Minnesota, as part of the Minnesota Baseball Instructional League. The kids spent five days at Siebert Field and one evening in the Metrodome refining their fielding and hitting techniques, videotaping and critiquing their playing.

The heat was horrible all week. I remembered from my college days what a Dutch oven a dorm could be in warm weather. This was also the week that the Brazilians lost the World Cup finals to France, so Jonathan was treated not only to the 100-degree heat of the dorm room, but the 100-degree anguish of the 300 Brazilian preteen soccer players also staying in the dorm. The wails in Portuguese lasted long into the night.

The first night, arriving late to deliver an oscillating fan, I opened his dorm room door to see two shiny-faced boys who hardly knew one another, with no TV and no computer games -- nothing to do, really, but inhale, exhale, and perspire.

His roommate Jacob was lonesome for Louisiana, and Jon was half-afraid Jacob would leave him alone in that awful room, but half-willing to quit college himself. He begged me to take him home, talking earnestly about home cooked meals -- the scrambled eggs at the U leaked water -- and the loving embrace of his mother.

After a couple of 93-degree days I started bringing him home for short stints. We were hot there, too, but he benefited visibly from being around his stuff, especially his Star Wars games.

And I took him out the last night to play for the team I help coach, the Comets of the Highland Groveland Recreation Association. Jon was hoping to light up the night sky with his the sophisticated new baseball skills. We won the game with a score something like 20-12, but Jon felt he didn't do his best. He threw a ball to Casey, our first baseman, too hard to catch, and you could see the error haunted him. He wants so bad to be good.

So now he's home again. Thursday is his last game of the tournament that ends his baseball season. With a few timely hits, his Comets could end the season unbeaten, something to remember all their lives. I know it is something I will remember. I've coached four other teams, and this team is very unusual. We practiced or played eight hours every week this summer. In this age of competing activities, that is unusual. The Comets are a throwback team -- kids who love to play ball.

So Saturday Jon asked if he could get a new game with the allowance we always forget to give him, and I was surprised to hear he did not want a Star Wars title. He wanted EA Baseball 99, a 3D baseball action game that sells for about $50. We drove to CompUSA, picked up a copy, took it home, and were unable to get it to perform in 3D -- the program was so new that our video card manufacturer has not released new drivers for it yet.

The killer was when I mentioned to him that stores don't like to take opened software back.

Jon was bereft. Fifty dollars is a chunk of money, and he felt he was being punished by the gods of baseball yet again. Rachel told me that while I napped in the afternoon heat, he sobbed quietly at the screen.

So she had him call CompUSA and ask what his options were. The store guy said bring the program in and he could exchange it for another -- a glimmer of hope in a razed world.

When I awoke, he apprised me of the opportunity. I sensed he wanted quick closure on the issue, so we drove back to the store just before it closed and made the switch, to a slightly less-new baseball title, Hardball 6 (from Accolade, also about $50). Wonder of wonders, back home it installed perfectly, and soon Jon was smacking the virtual ball against the walls of the imaginary stadium. The 3D, Jon assures me, is sensational.

What's it all mean? It was just a warm week with a growing boy. When I nap on the couch now, and Jonnie is in the next room, and I overhear the voice of announcer Bob Costa doing the play-by-play on Hardball 6, it could almost be another time, my time.

And I think how sweet it is to be ten, in the heat of the summer, and the tender moments that are going, going, gone.

To view the exploits of the HGRA Comets, and to participate in their awards ceremony, visit their website at http://mfinley.com/comets.htm.