My Perfect Season, by Mark Edmundson

"My Perfect Season," by Mark Edmundson (Harper's Magazine July 2016), is subtitled "Playing it safe in the Pee Wee League."

I did not swing the bat, and yet I was perfect.  I walked every time.  I was nine for nine or, as the record books would say, I was zero for zero.  A walk does not count in one's average as a time at bat.  But to myself I was impeccable, sinless.  I never did anything wrong.
--Mark Edmundson

This took place when Mark was seven years old, in 1960 in the Pee Wee League.  He doesn't tell us how many runs he scored or what the impact of his walks was.  Perhaps he doesn't remember much beyond the important point:  he never did anything wrong.  This is what it has come to in much of youth organized baseball:  fear of striking out, of dropping the ball, of not tagging up when there are less than two outs, etc.  When I was seven I played plenty of baseball, but always with other kids in sandlots, no adult coaches required.  Our goal was to have fun, so we didn't worry if we did something "wrong," that was part of the game; after all, in the major leagues even the best hitters make outs two-thirds of the time.

I like to win games, but unless I am heavily provoked, I do not like it that someone else has to lose.  I feel bad for the losers and sometimes, no doubt, contrive to put myself in the loser's sad space to save them the suffering.
--Mark Edmundson

I think the overall importance of winning has slunk down to the lowest levels of baseball and other games, as we see all kinds of cheating (mainly with performance-enhancing drugs) in professional sports.  It seems that playing a game for fun is becoming extinct, as sports have been taken over, even at the lowest levels, by organizations and ego-driven coaches.  Edmundson says "for a while I was allowed to be a child,"  something that is increasingly rare.  I never played any organized sport when I was a kid, though I did try out for the Little League when I was 12 and did not find out until years later that since the league was sponsored by the Elks Club only the children of club members were allowed in the league.  My father was not a member, nor did he have any interest in baseball.  During the summer I spent my time playing baseball and, when we didn't have enough kids for a game, reading.  When I went to prep school at fifteen years old I tried out for the baseball team and found I was quite out of my league:  the ball was thrown so hard and fast I could hardly see it, much less hit it. I switched to tennis.

In the final game of the season seven-year-old Edmundsome finally takes a swing at the ball, admiring his hit so much he almost forgets to run to first base.  It's a story we can take to heart:  one always has a chance.  As Abraham Lincoln said, "I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come."