PostGrad Single Dad: Ballgame

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“Wow! It’s huge!”

That’s what she said.

“That, son, is Lupton Stadium. Who are we going to watch there today?” he asked Grant as they strode through the parking lot.

Grant screamed “TCU!”

“Do you remember what their team is called?” Grant looked up, uncertain. He continued “The TCU Horned….Horned what buddy?”

Grant smiled. “Horned Buzz Lightyears!”

Yeah, not quite buddy.

As they walked to the stadium, he held Grant’s hand and had a level of excitement that wasn’t usually there when he and Grant did an activity together. He loved his son, but most of the things they went out and did together weren’t the most exciting. There’s only so much a dude in his mid-20s can love going to a playground or to watch his kid bounce at a trampoline park.

But, this wasn’t any old activity. This was baseball, America’s pastime; no better father & son sport than baseball. Grant had really only shown a middling interest in sports during his first four years on this Earth, much to his father’s chagrin. However, as they saw the bright lights for this overcast Sunday morning game, he was hopeful that he was about to have a wonderful baseball experience with his son.

When he was informed that his grandmother was heading to visit his family in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and that he better bring her great-grandson to see her, he decided to make the best of it. While the Rangers were still dicking around in Arizona, college baseball was in full swing. A quick Google search let him know that TCU had a home game, a Kid’s Day game nonetheless, that was just fifteen minutes away from his aunt’s place where the family would be staying.

The next two weeks would be spent hyping Grant up for the game. They’d never attended a game together, aside from stopping by to watch the local high school for an inning or two. He’d barely talked Grant into sitting on the couch and watching a few innings on TV, so he was really hoping the loud and exciting environment of a stadium would draw him in.

While he’d never really picked a college baseball team to cheer that hard for, TCU was likable enough and he felt the best way to get Grant to buy-in was to give him a rooting stake; cheer like hell for one team, wish nothing but the worst on the other. Sold on the idea that this game would be a defining moment for his son’s relationship with baseball, he decided to deck Grant out in a shirt and hat to support the home team.

Standing in line at the box office, Grant looked up at him grinning maniacally in his new hat, nearly shaking with excitement. They actually weren’t originally going to be alone in attendance, but when his buddy Drew texted him “my kid is sick, we’re not gonna be able to meet u there, been cleaning up puke all fuckin night,” it turned into a father-son outing. Seeing how excited Grant was as he handed him his ticket, he started to be happy that it worked out this way.

Picking up a $1 popcorn on the way, they made their way to the general admission seats on the second level and settled into a pair. Grant took it in, awestruck, while his father patted himself on the back for his timing.

The anthem played while they were getting popcorn, so the first on-field action was the starting pitcher’s warm-up tosses. He wanted to arrive right as the game was starting so he didn’t have to worry about Grant getting a bad impression of baseball by getting stuck watching the grounds crew get the field in shape.

As he munched on popcorn, Grant continued to soak it all in. He was at a baseball game with his son, a classic bonding experience, and something he would remember forever. With each pitch and ping of the deadened metal bats, Grant would fall more and more in love with the game. They’d eventually get season tickets somewhere, and head on many a baseball road trip. This was truly a specia-

“Daddy this popcorn is too salty, I don’t want it anymore.” Grant set the popcorn on the ground “Can we go play on those?” He pointed to the bouncy houses in the right field pavilion set up for Kid’s Day.

“Wha..What? But the game just started, it’s not even the..” He looked at the scoreboard, shaken, and continued. “Buddy this is the first batter, we haven’t even seen half an inning yet. Let’s watch some baseball and then head over there in a little bit.”

Grant started to pout “But I want to play there now and thennn watch baseball!”

He was both crestfallen and angry. Four pitches in, his son was spurning baseball to go jump on some rubber with a bunch of other unappreciative kids. Although, he figured that if he got tired out enough from jumping, they could come back and he’d just chill in their seats.

“Alright. Let’s go jump for a bit then come back, because who are we here to cheer on buddy?”

“BOUNCY HOUSES!” yelled Grant, suddenly snapped out of his funk.

God dammit.

Grant bounced to his heart’s content on a big TCU-purple bouncy house while his father tried to crane his neck over a brick wall to see some of the action. The generator keeping the house inflated was loud enough to drown out the PA system, and unless the ball was hit to either the right fielder or in foul territory down the first baseline, he was pretty much in the dark on the goings on of the game.

Grant peered at him through the netting of the bouncy house, smiling as big as he possibly could, and his father did his best to grin back.

It’s like he doesn’t realize he’s flushing his future as a baseball fan down the toilet. Damn kids these days.

Emerging from the house roughly thirty minutes later, he announced, “Dad I’m hungry! Can I please have a hot dog?”

“Sure buddy, lets go get one. And we can sit down.”

Maybe we can actually watch a full batter while he eats.

“With no bun please daddy!”

God, I forgot he’s got that weird thing about not eating hot dog buns.

They grabbed a hot dog, bunless, and walked over to some general admission seats closer to right field. He walked with Grant in one hand, and a naked hot dog half-wrapped in aluminum foil flopping around like a boiled flaccid penis in the other. But there was no row to themselves this time; they sat a few seats down from a group of girls in big sunglasses and big fraternity t-shirts, and just behind three dudes wearing purple Columbia PFGs with their letters on them.

He looked down, unable to help himself from creeping on the phone screen of the frat bro in front of him. He saw him complete a Venmo transaction for $20 with the broccoli emoji as the description.

I used to be like you once you twenty-year-old bastard. Now I’m just washed up, sitting here with a kid choking down a naked hot dog while wondering if I’ll get to see a full inning.

He did, but barely. Briefly consumed by a bouncy house/hot dog combo bout of sluggishness, Grant sat mostly still for an inning and a half. Unfortunately, he dropped half his hot dog on the ground and missed his first home run because he was fiddling with his hat. One more brief round of bouncy house jumping and another half-inning of the game, mixed with roughly going on two hours of sun, and he could tell that Grant was needing to tap out of this setting.

“Can we go dad, I’m getting hungry.”

You mean you don’t want to stay still and you’re tired as shit after eating a bunch of processed meat and popcorn? Yeah, let’s tap out. Not like it’s a 2-2 game or anything.

He took Grant’s hand and they walked through the concourse towards the gate, getting one last glimpse at the pitcher firing a strike towards home. With Grant walking quietly, his father was alone in his thoughts.

Welp, chalk that one up as a failure. Maybe down the road we can actually sit through a few innings. That goddamn hat was like $29 too. Kids these days man. I can’t even get him hooked on baseball.

“Daddy?” Grant’s voice broke his train of thought. “I had so much fun. Can we go to more TCU games?”

Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad. .

If you’re enjoying following “PostGrad Single Dad,” be sure to listen to the first episode of “The DadGum Podcast,” coming to Grandex Labs tomorrow.

Image via Unsplash

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Kyle Bandujo

The artist formerly known as Crash Davis. My kid doesn't think I'm funny.

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