Children at Play

They were both wearing wife beaters. The look almost worked for the girl, which is why the boy appeared all the more foolish. She was two heads taller, he was ghetto in the most Casper sense of the word. Welcome to Mound City Little League.

Newark has three separate (and very distinct) youth baseball programs: Mound City; Kiwanis; and North Newark. Kiwanis is the least competitive of the three, which is why I played there as a child. North Newark appeals to the homogeneous crowd, those who incidentally share the same ethnicity, neighborhood and stock profile. Mound City, where my brother has played for the last three years, is arguably the most competitive because it literally takes all kinds.

One could argue that families at Mound City are working class, however, since many of them subsist solely on government aid, working may not be the optimal word. Yet, whereas many are clad in wife beaters and jean shorts, you are just as likely to run into a Church of God devotee wearing a full length skirt on a 90 degree day or a harried working single mother who manages a convenience store when she is not attending her three son's baseball games.

There is an interesting dichotomy between observant Christian wife, single woman struggling to somehow extend an already full twenty-four day and welfare mother who has five kids separated by three years as if by government sanctioned design. But what is even more intriguing are the similarities between the three, and really all the people who attend the games at Mound City Little League. Diversity is a word, these people are real life.

Mothers always yell words of encouragement to their embarrassed child up to bat. Fathers always preach fundamentals and plate discipline, while deceptively whispering amongst themselves about how they would do things differently if they were coach, when what they really want to say is if they were the ones who were swinging the bat.

Everyone nurtures, everyone lives vicariously from swing to swing, class and race fade to the commonality found in six innings of little league baseball.

I often derisively laugh at the people in my town, it is easier to judge those like me and condemn those who appear too much apart. Children playing baseball doesn't change the fundamental nature of such a man, but for two hours even the cynic who shrouds himself in the absurd takes pause, eats a hot dog and enjoys the game.