Nobody Could Hit a Baseball Further than My Father
Wherever there was a field, my father wanted to play. Now he can. Forever. A guest post by Bill Firman.
Today would have been my father-in-law’s 76th birthday. We lost him in April 2020 after a three-year battle with vascular dementia followed by COVID. Rather than focusing on his death, I wanted to honor his birthday by sharing this post that my husband wrote a few days later.
No one could hit a baseball farther than my father. I’ve seen Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Willie Stargell, Jim Thome, Ryan Howard, right up to Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez. I’ve seen them all — and I’m telling you without fear of contradiction that no one could hit a baseball as far as Dad could.
When I was young, we neighborhood kids would play outside all day during the summer, as was done back before this world. More often than not we’d be playing baseball. We lived on a dead-end street so the chain-link fence at the end of said dead end made for a perfect outfield wall. I think I hit the fence once, but that might have been while trying to catch a fly ball rather than actually hitting one that far.
When he was not working, Dad would come out to hit fly balls for us. The problem was, he hit it so damned far. In fact, he’d cleared the fence at the end of the street so many times that we had to dig a hole at the bottom of the fence just so we could crawl under it and run the 300 or so yards to where Dad’s blast had finally stopped rolling in order to retrieve it. Whenever Dad came to bat, we all backed up to that fence and waited: sometimes, I’d just crawl under the fence ahead of time to see if I could catch it on the other side [but those went over my head, too].
Because wherever there was a field, my father wanted to play.
At family gatherings at his older sister’s home, Dad and me, my cousins, their friends, our other family members and assorted onlookers would walk down to the baseball field at an elementary school. We’d split up into teams — believe me, you wanted to be chosen for Dad’s team. If you weren’t, you’d be doing a lot of running. In fact, one refrain from my childhood that’s never left me is the sound of a half-dozen fielders yelling, “Back up! Back up!” whenever Dad was coming to the plate. He’d spray line drives — many to his pull side, rightfield [Dad was left-handed]. He’d hit them so far, in fact, that sometimes he had to ease up while hitting so that we wouldn’t run out of baseballs [which often rested in the backyard swimming pools of the poor people who thought it’d be a great idea to buy a house near the local school — never imagining what would happen if Dad discovered there was a baseball field there].
Because wherever there was a field, my father wanted to play. One of the great days of my life was in 2006 when he took me back to his old neighborhood. We walked all over the place. He showed me his middle school, his hangouts, the house he grew up in and countless other points of his childhood. He left the baseball field for last. There was a well-kept baseball field a decent-ways walk from his childhood home. It had an outfield fence, bases, even a small dugout. He’d often talked to me about his days roaming centerfield there. My Dad loved Willie Mays growing up. He always wanted to be like Willie Mays, especially when playing centerfield. See, Dad wasn’t just a power hitter — he was a damned fine centerfielder as a youngster. In fact, he idolized Willie Mays so much while growing up that he even imitated Willie’s habit of pounding his fist into his glove while en route to catching a fly ball. Dad once told me: “No matter where it was hit, if Willie hit his hand into his glove while tracking a fly ball — Willie caught it.”
Standing there, I watched him look out over the field silently. He was seeing his past. I could see him standing there, yet he was not with me: it was 1950-something and he was playing centerfield again.
So that day, in 2006, Dad took me to the field of his youth. We walked through the outfield to centerfield where 50 years earlier he’d roamed. Standing there, I watched him look out over the field silently. He was seeing his past. I could see him standing there, yet he was not with me: it was 1950-something and he was playing centerfield again. Then his mind and spirit rejoined me in 2006 and he smiled and said, “It seems like yesterday.”
I took it all in: this was the place that was home to my Dad for so many afternoons of his youth. I know that’s why he loved playing into his 50s — it brought him back to yesterday. I am so glad that I got to walk through yesterday with him that day.
My father died this week. The hows and whys aren’t what this piece is about. It’s about a man who could hit a ball farther than anyone I’ve ever seen. My sister shared with me a wonderful vision she had about Dad — there he was on the baseball field once again, hitting fly balls, running, finally free again to roam through yesterday again.
But now he can play there forever. And I know that the fielders yell, “Back up! Back up!” whenever he comes to the plate. I know he’s roaming the outfield, pounding his fist into his glove before tracking down fly balls hit by others.
And he’ll play the game all day until it’s too dark to see. Then he’ll be back at it tomorrow. And every day. Forever.
No one ever hit a ball farther than my father. And now he can do so forever.
🌹
This is a beautiful tribute to your father, Bill. It’s hard to imagine our parents as young men and women sometimes but you seem to have glimpsed that time in your dad’s life at the ball field. Keep that memory in your heart forever.