Last Friday, 7:43 a.m. A splinter of sunshine by some miracle of refraction squeezed through my Vancouver basement bedroom window, blazed across my cheek and cut a direct line to the baseball bat in my closet. Me, suddenly awake and rustling in a box marked "keepers" for a pot of mink oil. My elbow sends a spare cushion tumbling from atop another box, revealing a neon green bag full of softballs. And there's my trigger. Last season's stats swim into my head, tournament pitch-counts and beer garden orders.
I love the Majors. I do. The White Sox and the Athletics are squaring off as I type this, scoreless in the bottom of the fourth. But this, the Bowen Island Men's Fastpitch League, this is the kind of league where the sponsors are just as much your friends and neighbours as the players are. Where the players aren't bought. Where the bullpen is only three, maybe four, deep. Where the boys can achieve in seven innings twice the magic that the Majors can in nine. Where the 67-year-old bearded wonder who excavated the field some 24 years ago can step up to the plate with a pin in his ankle and knock his first (and only) ever homer over that little jog in centre-left, the jog he put there 24 years ago, off a wicked fastball thrown by his own son.
And I can tell you, Jamie Weismiller had every intention of sitting his dad down with that pitch. A heartwarming father-son hug followed by what was probably the longest record turn around the bases by Eddie, and history was officially made. Nobody who caught that moment is going to forget it.
And there are more of those moments, so many more. There's even a good chunk more to that particular story. I could tell you, but it's not the same as sitting in the bleachers, breathing in the mingled smell of cut grass and salty air, watching the sun drop and the men make local sports history. The stuff of pub lore. I could tell you, but it's not the same as leaning in, feeling the home team's 3-2 pitch-count, with a one-run lead and two away, runners on second and third in the top of the seventh, knowing that the next pitch could put the win in the bag or send the battle raging on through another half-inning, maybe even an extra inning if need be and the light is good.
Or maybe you didn't understand too much of that last bit. Fair enough. But there's still more. There's the purely social aspect, fans gathering to watch friends, family, husbands and secret crushes play ball, while they -the fans- chat, gossip and make new friends in the bleachers. There's watching the kids sprint off after every homer and foul-hit ball, knocking elbows and helmets to try to find the ball and score the dollar or 50 cent prize for returning it to the scorekeeper.
There's sitting in the sun at the end of the day, unwinding with some real live, free, homegrown sports. There's watching bemusedly as the umpires call a time-out because someone's dog has wandered onto the field. Magical moments, all. Maybe you even learn a little something about the game. About yourself. About your neighbour's secret identity as a heck of a second baseman.
The White Sox and the Athletics are still scoreless after six. I'm going to go watch it, but I can tell you right now I'm not going to enjoy it nearly as much as I'm going to enjoy the Bowen Island Men's Fastpitch League triple-header opener on Sunday, April 29. Games are at noon, 2 and 4 p.m. Bring a blanket, bring the kids, bring a cheer or two. You might just get into it.
This season's schedule is available online at www.bowenbaseball.com.
KATALINA BERNARD
