Life's Change Up

I reach in my glove and feel the familiar warmth of the worn hardball that I use for my warm-ups.  My fingers find the stitching and I pause.  I am taken back to the events that have led to this moment in time.

My father, Hurlin’ Herman Hunter, was the ace of his high school pitching staff.  His big pitch was a nasty curveball that broke like nobody’s business.  He was my first coach.

Everyday when he got home from work we would play catch for hours, unless of course the Cubs were playing.  I think we were the only Chicago fans in Detroit.  My dad had grown up in Wheeling, Ill and was headed for Wichita State until that day.

It was just a few weeks before the high school playoffs were to begin.  My grandparents had wanted to surprise my dad with a baseball signed by the great Ernie Banks so having already purchased the ball they were headed to Wrigley Field.

Engrossed in their mission, they never noticed the semi careening out of control until too late.  When the ambulance arrived my grandmother was dead and my grandfather, Ted, was barely clinging to life.  A policeman had been entrusted with the ball.  Ted’s dying words were, “Give this to Herman.”

My father never pitched again, never went to college, or finished high school.  He had three sisters and a little brother to care for.  Herman got a job working on the line with Dodge.  The five of them lived in a one-room apartment over Uncle Zeke’s garage until dad made enough to get an apartment.  My aunt Cilia began working at a bakery when she was 14 and the others soon followed suit.

Dad moved his way to a foreman’s position, the youngest in the company.  He sent Aunt Celia to culinary school in New York where she works today as a pastry chef.  My aunt Maggie married her high school boyfriend who owns a chain of dry cleaners.  Aunt Fern is a city councilman in Pontiac and Uncle Lou is the Cub’s beat writer for the Tribune.  My dad retired from Dodge in September after having put two kids through college.

This old weathered ball is the very one my grandparents had intended for my dad.  I give it to the equipment manager for safe keeping as I head out for the ninth inning.  The PA announces my arrival, “Now taking the mound for Chicago is the lethal lefty, Ted “the Head” Hunter!”  Just three outs away from ending the Cubs’ World Series woes I am not motivated by history.  Neither fame nor money drives me.  No, I do this for the man who gave up all of his dreams to insure that two families could have theirs, my father.  With that as my last conscious thought I clear the mechanism.