Coaching in the South

The field sits behind the church, where the grass gives up and turns to dust and the backstop hums softly in the heat like it’s remembering something from a long time ago. In the South, most baseball fields sit near churches or graveyards or both, because the game and eternity have always understood each other.

Coach stands in the infield with a bucket of baseballs and a handful of children who are still learning the difference between chaos and order. T-ball is not really baseball. It is faith. It is belief that a small boy in an oversized jersey will one day understand what it means to watch a ball fall from the sky and trust his hands to be there when it arrives.

A kid swings and misses the ball sitting perfectly still on the tee, which feels like a metaphor for something. The boy laughs anyway. The other kids laugh too. Nobody is keeping score because at this age the score is just the number of times you get back up after falling down.

Somewhere beyond the outfield fence, a truck drives by slow enough to suggest the driver is watching. In the South, people always watch baseball slow. They watch it the way they watch storms roll in across flat land, knowing something important is happening even if they can’t quite explain what.

Coach kneels in the dirt and shows a kid how to hold the glove open to the sky, like a prayer. The boy nods and tries again. The ball falls into the leather and stays there, and for a moment the world feels organized and kind and simple.

Later, when the sun drops behind the trees and the field empties out, Coach will realize this was never about baseball at all.

-Houston ‘Bump’ Bailey