Excerpt featured in Emory Magazine

In the spring 2010 issue of Emory Magazine, which focuses on sports and competition, an excerpt from Ball Crazy is featured on the last page ("Coda"). The excerpt draws from the opening scene in Chapter 1 of the book, with the following added:

Five years ago, when my wife and I first signed up our two sons in a neighborhood youth baseball league, I never thought I would wind up as a dad with a baseball problem. I didn’t see the value of over-organized youth sports. I grew up playing sandlot baseball in a park where the longleaf pine trees outnumbered the players. I never played catch with my father. He died when I was eight, and a year later I discovered baseball on my own terms.

My version of baseball bears no resemblance to the game my sons play. Our games lurched along, disrupted by frequent breakdowns of talks and negotiations, arbitrary pummeling of younger brothers by older brothers, cars driving through the outfield, and equipment issues, such as when the only ball would be lost forever to a rogue palm tree. There were also moments so perfect that they took our breath away.

Over the years, as a baseball dad-coach, I have learned to appreciate the youth baseball experience. Now I understand that baseball is a game best passed down from one generation to the next. I have seen my sons work with adults—and trust them—in a way I never learned while playing sandlot. I’ve seen them grow confident in their skills, and I’ve shared moments with them that have allowed me to see them in a new light, as if seeing the men they would one day become.