Tag: softball

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Taking the Field

The world seemed to stop as Missy slowly reached for the softball on the ground. Felt for a grip. Then raised it up above her head and THREW.

“Woohoo!” “All right!” “Way to go, champ!”

On this day, on this ballfield, it was a moment of triumph to equal any World Series ever played.

This marked yet another season-ending game for the Niwot Nightmares, a “Softball for All” team that Missy, my wife’s developmentally disabled aunt, has played for since its founding. The season ran a little later than usual – torrential downpours in June had a habit of washing out games – but otherwise, the same Monday evening joy and enthusiasm reigned.

If you’ve never seen the Nightmares and their league-mates in action on a summer’s evening, I highly recommend it. It’s a little different than anything you’ll experience at Coors Field. There’s no screaming vendors, no multi-million-dollar contracts … heck, there aren’t even any outs.

Instead, you get a game that moves at the pace of each player. You get friends coming together and cheering each other on, including the ones on different teams. Most of all, you get a sense of fun that has kept families coming back for years.

And when Missy steps on that field, she does it with the pride of an All-Star. Heck, she’s tipped her helmet to the crowd so many times – sometimes in a single at-bat – that we started nicknaming her “Hollywood.” For her, it’s both a game and a celebration.

She’s taking pride in what she can do. Pushing it, even. Not with an eye to someone else’s performance, but with an eagerness to meet the moment.

I try to do the same. I’m not always successful.

I suspect most of us aren’t, regardless of our level of ability.

We learn early on to judge what we can do and “stick to what we’re good at.” It’s a toxic lesson but a hard one to avoid. Everyone loves success and hates failure, and getting good at something requires a lot of failure.

And so, we diminish ourselves. We learn not to step out on limbs so that we’ll avoid embarrassment … and as a result, we never really learn to fly.

I’m not just talking about acquiring skills. These days, most people have at least heard of “imposter syndrome,” the conviction that everyone else has it figured out and that sooner or later they’ll realize you’re faking it.  It’s an affliction that’s not limited to the obscure – the author Neil Gaiman was once shocked to discover that Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, felt out of place in a room full of accomplished individuals because “I just went where I was sent.”

“And I felt a bit better,” Gaiman famously wrote later. “Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did.”

We’re all vulnerable. We’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. When we understand that, I think we become a little easier on each other. And on ourselves as well.

And then, only then, can we really grow.

I’m not saying we’re all going to turn into figures of legend and envy. But we’ll find what we need for the season we’re in. And maybe a little joy besides.

Move at your pace. Give yourself permission to discover. Meet the moment with what you have, whatever it may hold.

And if that moment leads you to a celebration with friends on a hot summer night … so much the better.

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Has Anyone Seen My Normal?

After this week, I think I’m stuck in the doorway of “normal.”

Step on through and I’ll show you what I mean.

We began the week on the playing fields of Clark-Centennial Park where, after a long COVID-related hiatus, the Niwot Nightmares finally returned to the softball diamond. Long-time readers may remember that this is the home team for our own Missy, part of a “Softball For All” program for the disabled that warms the heart every summer …. along with warming everything else, given the Colorado heat.

It’s here. It’s familiar. It feels like it never went away.

Yay, normal!

And the end of the week? We spent that celebrating the high school graduation of my wife’s youngest sister, the one who used to come over for sleepovers when she was seven years old. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, we’ve moved from building marble runs and shooting self-produced living room videos to making plans for UNC and a possible future as a social studies teacher.

It’s here. It’s unfamiliar. It feels like everything is moving at high speed.

Uh … yay, normal?

Oh, and in the midst of all this, of course, there was a tornado that popped into the area with almost no warning, narrowly missed a major power station, brought some damage (though thankfully no deaths) and then nipped back off without so much as a “see ya.”

Uh … yay, normal.

And if that’s not the last few months in miniature, I don’t know what is.

Ever since March 2020, when everything got frozen in amber for several months, most of the attention has been focused on what we’ve missed, what we’ve lost, what we can’t wait to restore. We’ve talked about rebuilding normal like it’s a tornado-struck building, where we can unroll the blueprints, get the materials, maybe fix that carpet we’ve always been meaning to adjust and then pick up life where we left it.

The trouble is, of course, that normal is a moving target. Some of the familiar won’t come back. Some of the new won’t go away. And plenty of things will stay in motion and change, whether it’s as predictable as a girl growing up or as out of the blue and disruptive as a summer storm.

The fact is, we don’t know what “normal” is going to look like. Any of us. The outlines have started to form, some of the colors have been filling in, but the picture that will emerge and the reality we’ll have to fit into is still uncertain. And it’s not going to be wholly comfortable.

This isn’t the calm experience of walking out the front door. This is standing on the edge of the airlock, with scattered reports of the alien world beyond, but no firsthand experience. We can’t stay. But we’re not sure what we’re going to.

These are the moments of discovery. Of our world and ourselves.

A friend recently recommended a book to me about “liminal experiences,” the in-between moments when an old identity has been lost and a new one is still emerging. They’re not easy. They’re not comfortable. But they’re also unavoidable. And if we let them, they can be a special moment of transformation.

It requires trust and discernment and no small amount of courage. Walking in the dark – or at least in the fog – always does. But as unsettling as it is, we have to go on.

And when the new has fully emerged, we’ll be shocked at how quickly it becomes “normal.” It always does.

I’m glad for what’s returned. I’m curious for what will be. A season of discovery is ahead.

And while I’m waiting, I even get to watch a little softball.

Yay, normal. 

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Lens of Love

In the heat of summer, he was there. The game ebbed and flowed around him as players steadily wheeled their chairs from base to base, or reached down for a lightly hit grounder, or waited for the next pitch with an aluminum bat and a coach’s help.

He never intruded, rarely drew attention. But through his lens, the Monday night softball game became magic. No – through his lens, the game revealed the magic it already held, as the joy and eagerness of each player made them shine like stars.

This was the Ed Navarro that Heather and I knew.

And this was the Ed that Missy loved.

By now, you’ve probably heard or read about Ed’s passing. He was one of those guys who makes a community work, the sort where you read the obituary and say “Wait – he did that, too?” The piece in the Times-Call hit all the beats – co-founder of El Comité, passionate local lawyer and advocate for the Hispanic community, and always ready to capture a local activity or a youth sporting event with his perfectly placed camera.

Most of it, I’m a little embarrassed to say, was new to me. That’s how it often is with the people in our lives; we see the small piece that intersects our own, unaware that we’re dealing with a leading actor in the show.

But then, I’m not sure how many knew the piece we saw, either. The part that greeted the Monday night crowd at Clark Centennial Park.

The part that was a fixture at the summertime “Softball for All.”

Some of you have seen me write about the summer softball program here for the disabled; the one that runs for three innings with plenty of cheers, no outs and no score. Every year, our ward Missy lives for the next season to arrive, when she can don her Niwot Nightmares T-shirt and grab a bat, a glove, and a coach’s arm for support as she travels the bases.

I teasingly call her “Hollywood” during the season because she strides the field like a celebrity, often stopping to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd with a wave or even a bow. And like any good celebrity, her room is full of the photos of her accomplishments, on the walls and filling well-thumbed albums.

Every one of those photos came from Ed Navarro.

Each year, at the end of the season, the teams hold an ice-cream social at the Longmont Senior Center. And each year, they and their families arrive to find the walls covered with dozens, if not hundreds, of photographs from Ed that he had taken at the games. Each player could bring home their own, the shots that revealed their own inner Mantle and Galarraga and A-Rod. And each got to keep an album with shots of everyone. The later years even included a CD in the album that held every shot.

We always cheered him and gave him a card and a gift. It could never have been enough. Not compared to what he gave us.

Not compared to the love that shone from every wall.

The funny thing is, we hold up folks like Ed as special. And they are. They’re priceless. But their greatest power, I think, is to remind us that anyone can be an Ed.

We all have something to offer. We all have something to share. It might be a moment’s kindness. It might be a talent that creates a memory. It might be something, anything, that says “You’re human. You matter. You are loved and seen.”

It’s easy to forget that sometimes, to feel alone. When we reach out, we rebuild the family. And that lifts all of us up.

We can all be important in someone’s eyes.

Ed’s eyes captured memories and shared them freely. And in those memories, a whole league was revealed as All-Stars.

Thank you, sir.

Our caps are off to you.

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Teaming Up

The threat of rain had passed. The clouds lingered, leaving a perfect day for softball. Missy and her friends were all geared up, and nothing could stop the launch of another great season.

Not even a little thing like having enough players.

Some of you may remember the Monday night softball league from previous columns. The rosters feature disabled players, great enthusiasm, and absolutely no concern for strikes, balls, outs, or even runs. It’s an hour in the sunshine to hit, throw, and run (or walk, or wheel) to the cheers of friends and family as each lineup makes its way around the bases.

“There’s a lot of love on this field,” one parent told me at the season opener. I had to agree.

It’s a couple of steps beyond informal, and that’s its glory. Sun Tzu once called a formless strategy the pinnacle of military deployment. I’m not sure how many softball teams Sun Tzu coached, but the same idea applies here: things are so loose that anything can be adapted to.

So when one team showed up with practically every member who had ever worn the jersey, while another had a bare handful signed up and ready to play, the answer was obvious. No, not forfeit.

Share players.

Minutes later, about a third of Missy’s teammates had crossed to the other dugout. The uniforms no longer meant a thing. The game had always been friends playing with friends, now it became even more so.

The different teams didn’t matter. The game was more important. And the game went on.

That’s an example to learn from.

It’s easy to get attached to teams. One way or another, we do it most of our lives, and not just in Bronco orange or Rockies purple. We stake out grounds based on politics. Creeds. Histories. Origins. We find a thousand ways to draw the line and define who we are – or, sometimes more vividly, to define who we’re not.

Now an identity is not in itself a bad thing. I’m not advocating that we all join the ranks of the formless, the gray, the uncommitted who just move through the background and leave without a ripple. Ideas CAN be important; concepts CAN be urgent enough to fight for or toxic enough to oppose with spirit and conviction.

But when the team becomes more important than the game, something is out of balance.

It happens when winning becomes more important than how you win. It happens when rules, or consideration, or even simple civility become less important than self-aggrandizement. It happens when conversation stops and the participants begin talking past each other – beyond not seeing each other as equals, all the way to literally not seeing each other.

It happens when “I” becomes paramount. When “we” becomes the people that agree with me. And when “they” ceases to exist in our awareness altogether.

Each of us could quote a dozen examples in just a week’s headlines. I won’t waste the space here. But we all know the atmosphere it creates, as deadly as any greenhouse gas.

The thing is, teams are temporary. The Federalists were once the hottest thing going. Now they’re a line in a Broadway musical. Parties, movements, loyalties of a hundred kinds are born of a moment in history. They change, they grow, they merge and split, they even disappear – and the players almost always find another team.

But the game has to go on.

Without the game, there’s no reason for a team at all.

I’m hoping that most of us believe that. If we do, if we act on it, the toxic clouds can lift again. We can have disagreement, even passionate argument, without the discord that drowns out any useful theme.

We can walk in the sunshine again. I think we will.

Maybe we can even play a little softball.

Batter up.

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Prizewinner

A plastic medal. A book of photographs. A little ice cream, quickly gone. Not the stuff, perhaps, that a big league contract is made of.

But for Missy, this was her World Series ring.

I’ve written before about Missy’s softball league, the one geared to physically and mentally disabled players. There’s no score, no win-loss record, no single-elimination playoff, just a good time on a hot summer’s day. Throw the ball, take your swings and make your way around the bases at your own speed to the cheers of family and friends.

It’s fun for those who play, maybe even more so for those who watch. My wife Heather and I have done our best to properly embarrass Missy as she rounds the bases on a volunteer’s arm, whooping and hollering like Troy Tulowitzki had just hit .400. We’ve talked about wearing “Team Missy” shirts when she plays, just to see if the 100-watt smile can get any brighter—or maybe to see how hard she can throw in our direction with a laughing “Shu’ up!”

The biggest reward, though, comes at season’s end when the four teams come together for one last blast. This year it was an ice-cream social in the Senior Center’s gym, the walls plastered with pictures from every game. Everyone got their roar of applause and their photo album, destined to become Missy’s favorite reading material for weeks on end.

Funny, really, how little it takes.

Or is it how much?

This is something that’s been looked at time and again in the working world. How do you motivate people? How do you make them valued and rewarded? How do you create a team and not just a group of people who happen to show up at the same time and do the same kind of work?

You can’t dismiss pay from the equation entirely, though some experts (and maybe some companies) would clearly like to. But even that most fundamental recognition is more of an effect than a cause. Go deeper.

In study after study (and most common sense observations), the same sorts of things come up: A worker wants a workplace they can be proud of and that’s proud of them. They want to enjoy being where they are. They want respect, recognition, more listening and fewer jerks.

To receive dignity. To know that someone cares. To be wanted and needed, and have it shown.

Really, when you think about it, that’s not limited to the workplace. It’s a human fundamental. Everyone should have value.

It’s when we forget that, when we scorn or patronize or decide that someone isn’t worth our time, that we leave marks on the soul.

Think about some of our greatest challenges and controversies. The neglect of our aging veterans. The children from other lands streaming to Emma Lazarus’s “golden door.” The fear of our daily lives being spied on, by government or business.

What are all of these, if not a test of how much respect a person is due? Of who deserves dignity and how much?

And as the scale gets greater, the stakes get higher. The individual that sets off Missy’s “jerk detector” will see her usually open manner pull back. The company that neglects the care of its employees will see friction and defection. The nation that forgets it exists for all the people and not just a lucky few will stain its name before the world. We’ve seen it too many times: Red Scares, internment camps, segregation and more.

Turn it around and that respect can become the greatest of strengths. For a country. For a company. For a team.

A plastic medal – given by a caring friend in the midst of friends. A book of photographs – capturing memories of great times with loving people. A little ice cream, quickly gone – eaten with teammates who can’t help but linger.

There’s the heart of it. There’s the true reward.

Shining right there in Missy’s eyes.

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A Rose for the Infield

The bat tapped the ball gently, sending a soft liner into the infield dirt.

“Go, Missy!” Heather and I shouted as Missy leaned on the arm of a volunteer and slowly made her way to first base. Partway there, she looked back over her shoulder to make sure we were watching and beamed.

Another softball season had opened. Missy, as usual, was having the time of her life.

Even without “her Joe.”

“My Joe” is how Missy refers to Joe Brooks, her Niwot Nightmares coach for a number of seasons. Once upon a time, Joe taught at Longmont High School and coached baseball. After his retirement, he decided to keep his hand in, and volunteered with a local league for the disabled.

I’ve written about that league before, where life is less about winning and losing and more about having a good time in the sunshine. Missy, my wife’s developmentally disabled aunt, may be one of the longest-running players. In his time as coach, Joe practically adopted her, always greeting her with a smile, a hug and some advice on practicing her throwing.

I always admired how much he gave to that team. But it’s funny. Now that Mr. Brooks has retired for the second time, I find myself looking at the whole league with a different eye.

An eye full of roses.

I should explain. Recently, I had the chance to catch up with a dear family friend named Sarah. As we talked and reminisced, she happened to bring up one of her favorite parts of town: the Roosevelt Park rose garden.

Why the rose garden?

“Because of what it means,” she explained. To her, it was about more than just the flowers. It was about living in a society where those flowers could be planted and maintained, a society safe enough that one could walk among the flowers in peace and without fear. Where the flowers themselves could be left in peace.

This wasn’t just a garden. It was a small reminder of how lucky she was to live where she lived, in a place where quiet and beauty could still have somewhere to be.

Watching the players and their helpers on the dusty diamond, I had a similar feeling.

Joe Brooks poured energy and love into the program. And that’s a great thing. But the program was around before him and is still going strong after him – and that may be a greater one.

It means there are still so many who care.

We don’t always do such a great job of looking after “the least of these.” I’m sure most of us could point to stories – or real-life examples – of a world that looks past the poor, that neglects the elderly and the disabled, that leaves children to shiver with cold and fear. They’re heartbreaking accounts. And too often, they’re just accounts, engaging our sympathy but not any sort of response.

After all, it’s so big. What can we do?

What we can do.

What some people have done here is to keep a small labor of love going each summer. To prove that this is still a place where the disabled can have a place, that love and friendship and care are not dead. That flowers of kindness can be planted, and bloom.

It may not transform the world. But it’s protecting this small piece of it.

So thank you, Joe. Thank you to all the coaches and organizers and volunteers, past and present, who keep this garden growing.

You may not get laurels. But you surely have roses.

See you in the bleachers.