Curveball

              I turn on the television in our hotel room and land on ESPN. This is my nightly routine: winding down to Sportscenter en Español. I watch the baseball highlights of the day and see players like Alexi Ramirez, Yeonis Cespedes, and Lyonis Martin, all of which are Cuban defectors. I can’t even imagine what a transition it must be to go from Cuban baseball to American baseball, to go from making virtually nothing to making millions. Then again, I’m American: I’ve been programmed to assign the idea of value to that of monetary worth. It’s hard to break bad habits. Or is it?

               

              I threw a baseball to a young child earlier today. While I was standing outside, waiting for the rest of our group to gather for dinner, this young boy was walking home from school with a cluster of friends. I was tossing a fairly new Nike baseball up in the air, reminiscing back to when I was a freshman in high school, a starting pitcher on the varsity team. The boy spouted something in Spanish that I didn’t quite understand, that is, until he raised his hands. It was clear that he wanted me to toss the ball to him. So I did. He caught the ball and moved a few steps away from his group. He immediately fixated on the ball, eyes staring intently at the words “Nike Official League.” I’m not sure that he understood what he was looking at other than a baseball, just like I’m not sure that the words “Nike Official League” mean anything other than that this baseball was made by Nike. After he quickly showed his friends the ball, he raised his arm to throw it back to me. I said, “No. Keep it.” He didn’t totally understand, that is, until I raised my hands and gesticulated in that universal way that the ball was now his. I can honestly say that this particular second in time was probably the most valuable of our trip, at least for me. When the boy made the connection that he had just been gifted a Nike Official League baseball, a slow yet overwhelming grin crept across his face; it was slow for him and overwhelming for me. I’m thankful that I was wearing sunglasses. From ear to ear this boy looked as if his face was made of shiny gums and brilliant white teeth. Immediately, when the rest of his group understood what had just happened, he was mobbed by his friends. He hid the ball with a joking selfishness then trotted in front of the group with the bravado that most children are innately equipped with. It was magical. We shared something during that second, and I’m not exactly sure what it was, but it was potent. Memories from my youth flashed by, an enchanted time where the mythological was still very much a part of my reality, where gods still walked the earth and blessed the most worthy of mortals, and I remember, for that brief second when the boy realized that the baseball was now his, I felt that magic again. Though the boy ended up with a fairly new Nike Official League baseball, he gave me something so much more incredible, so much more valuable. Without overly appealing to sentimentality or sounding too cliché, I have to say that though I gave this young boy a baseball, the gift was totally mine.