Last At Bat Brian T. Edwards (bio) “Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.” — Yogi Berra 1. Things Unseen I was sitting out on the patio at Casey’s with Dewey, and the conversation came back to baseball, as it inevitably does.1 Talking about the competitive league our sons play in — which everyone here just calls “travel” — exerts a strong undertow; there’s no way to avoid getting drawn in. Dewey and I could talk for hours about poorly behaving parents and problematic coaches. We pore over the mechanics and prospects of young players like scouts during a rain delay or sports-radio jockeys. At times, we retell specific plays with the misty nostalgia of one of those documentaries on PBS. [End Page 723] Like the time six years ago, in the first round of the playoffs, his nine-year-old son Hayes was playing second while my Theo, an unflappable eight-year-old lefty, was on the mound. Our guys were overmatched, but we were somehow holding a 2-1 lead coming into the bottom of the sixth with the top of their order coming up. The tension on every pitch was far beyond what you’d expect for kids this young. It was even worse for us parents, who stood arm in arm in foul territory literally holding each other up. Theo somehow gets the first batter to tap out to the mound. But now their power hitter is up, and you can tell he’s ready to smash it. Theo throws low in the zone — strike one! “Way to go, Theo!” Dewey yells. The big guy fouls off the next pitch — strike two! “Atta boy!” shouts Jackson’s dad; you hear the anxiety in his voice. Theo throws a ball inside — 1 and 2. “Great count, Theo!” I yell, hoping he’ll know I mean to waste a pitch low and make the batter chase. But Theo has been told by his coaches to throw strikes, and the fact that he can do so under tremendous pressure is what makes him our go-to closer. He throws it right over the plate. The batter opens his eyes wide, cocks his front knee up like a pro, and simply crushes a stinging line drive to right. There’s a sharp collective inhale on our side as the parent-line watches the ball sail over the head of the right fielder; it carries all the way to the fence and makes a loud smack against the boards that comprise the right field wall. We parents curse our luck because Grant is playing right. Grant isn’t very coordinated. He could hit the ball harder than anyone but hasn’t yet “grown into his body,” as the coaches say about boys they are willing to wait for, ones they know are going to be big by glancing at their parents or older brothers. Now, as he lumbers back to the fence to get the ball — “run, grant, run!” his mother yells in desperation — Hayes, spry and competitive, wearing number 2 in honor of his hero, Jeter, runs way out into right field to take the cutoff, arms waving: “Grant! Cut off, Grant!” Grant’s parents are yelling loudest from our side: [End Page 724] “cut off!” After what seems like forever, Grant finally gets the ball to Hayes, who turns, God love him, and hurls a miraculous throw all the way to third base on a fly to tiny Jackson, who sweeps down with a flawless tag. It was the play of the season. I remember it better than my wedding. Forgive me for indulging, but that is what Dewey and I do: we indulge each other. We’d say we have an unbiased perspective. We’ve each coached at least a dozen local teams; most boys in town have played for us or against us. Inevitably, we drift into perilous waters. We lower our voices instinctively as we wade into some of the most troubling of subjects: the corruption by which the professionals hired by the town select the travel teams and make lineups, whether there is collusion between...