alleymon Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Way to break a kid’s heart
From the family files.
By KEITH SHARON
The Orange County Register
My son is the 8-year-old in the ratty Eckstein jersey, worn so much that the letters are frayed and falling off the back. It has dirt embedded in its thick nylon fibers and pizza-oil splotches and chocolate scars.
His name is Dylan and he wears that jersey to baseball practice, to play around the neighborhood, to school.
In spring training 2004, we were sitting at Tempe Diablo Stadium just behind the Angels’ dugout when a man sitting next to Dylan asked him who his favorite player was. Dylan didn’t hesitate.
“David Eckstein,” he said proudly, his eyes bright under the Angels hat that David Eckstein had signed.
When your son says David Eckstein is his favorite player, it makes you feel like you’ve won a little battle in the parenting war. Because David Eckstein is the right player to like. When your son says David Eckstein, virtue and selflessness and team play and effort have won, momentarily, over all the other things sports seem to be about.
And then, this happens: David Eckstein walks up to the plate, seconds after my son has proclaimed him as his favorite player, and he hits a foul pop. It’s coming straight at us. Dylan leaps to his feet and extends his glove. He’s going to catch this spinning comet, and this is going to be the defining moment of his young life.
But the man sitting next to him catches the ball.
Dylan slams his fist into his glove.
And the man takes one look at Dylan and hands him that ball.
That ball now sits on the desk in Dylan’s room.
Dylan was holding that ball when I went into his room Tuesday morning.
•••
Monday night, I told him the Angels had released David Eckstein.
I could think of no other way than to just come right out and say it.
He stared at me.
Then he ran into the other room crying. He came back a few minutes later and curled up on my lap.
“I’m depressed,” was all he said.
I’ve never heard him say that before. I was depressed, too. I told him that Orlando Cabrera is a better fielder. He hits for more power. He won the World Series.
“So did David,” he said.
I have talked to my son about Eckstein for four years. Eckstein might be an average ballplayer, but he’s a great father’s tool.
In the winter, I tell Dylan that Eckstein catches ground balls in the snow. I tell him that in college, Eckstein didn’t get a scholarship, but he worked his way into a starting position. I tell him that in the pros, Eckstein was released by the Red Sox, but he didn’t give up.
I don’t know how many times I’ve told him that Eckstein never walks on a baseball field.
We took Dylan out for ice cream to help him feel better.
He didn’t.
Tuesday morning, I picked up The Orange County Register’s sports page, and there was a hole in the middle. Dylan had cut out Eckstein’s picture.
“Dad,” he said. “Do we have a nail?”
“For what?”
“I want to hang his picture in the house.”
I took the picture and hung it over his bed. That worked, he said.
He ate his breakfast staring at the sports page.
He quickly pointed out that Eckstein had a higher batting average and a better fielding percentage than Cabrera. I didn’t know that Dylan knew what a fielding percentage was.
He looked at the picture of Cabrera, his finger pointing toward the heavens after making a great play on the field.
“David wouldn’t do that,” Dylan said. “He wouldn’t brag like that.”
Dylan was right.
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Copyright 2004 The Orange County Register