One of the beauties of cellphone technology is caller ID. When my phone trilled that afternoon in late December I saw the name of my friend and neighbor pop up on the screen. David Roth rarely called.
“Hello?”
We exchanged genial insults, as men will do. Then he got to the point.
“I’m going to be the head coach of the school baseball team this year,” he said. “I need an assistant.”
He had me cornered, and we both knew it. My older son had played on the team last year and surely planned to try out again. This year, his kid brother was eligible to try out, too. Smart money said they’d make the squad. With two Davis boys on the team, why not rope in their old man, too?
“Well, uh —”
“What? It’ll be fun!”
“I, well, I don’t know, David, uh —”
“Dude. It’s baseball.”
Baseball.
For a moment, on that wet and gray afternoon, I am back on that most-perfect patch of planet, left field of Franklin Field in Cary, N.C. I’m 14. Gordon Hamilton has just unloaded a towering shot from home plate. It sketches a white arc across a blue sky. I leg toward deep left. My young brain does some quick calculating: x = speed of ball/angle of descent; y = speed of outfielder/reach of catching arm. And this: z = dorkiness of outfielder. I close in. The ball nears earth. I’m running full-tilt. The fence is at my face. I turn. I raise my glove —
“What do you say?” Roth, closing the sale.
I recall that long-ago coach who put me in left field for what turned out to be a championship season. He was equal parts task master and cheerleader, demanding and forgiving, the kind of man a boy wants to be. This was a chance to emulate him.
“OK,” I told Roth. “I’m in.”
2
Tough choices
The Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School’s middle school is housed in an aging brick building in Ormewood Park, close to East Atlanta Village. It’s not large, less than 400 students, and my sons live close enough to walk to class. When they complete studies there, Reuben and Sam Davis are scheduled to enroll at nearby Maynard Jackson High School.
When you’re 13 and 11, high school is as distant as the Rockies. What’s more immediate is its baseball field. We gathered there Jan. 10, the Wolves’ tryout day. The dirt base paths, still frozen from the night before, crunched underfoot.
Twenty kids shivered on metal bleachers. Their breaths rose in a collective white cloud.
Coach Roth talked. I didn’t listen. The kids, I knew, weren’t the only ones to be tested that day. I had an argument with myself:
Coach Softy: Everyone deserves to be on the team.
Coach Meany: No, they don’t.
We would limit the roster to 14. Six kids would be disappointed.
Roth, myself and a handful of dads ran the kids through a series of exercises to determine everyone’s skills. Some adults hit grounders in the infield. Others clocked speeds in the 40-yard-dash.
My job: assess outfielding skills. Another dad held a metal bat; I grasped a clipboard with the players’ names. I was to judge each with a number, from 1 (better luck next year) to 5 (suit up, kid).
“Ready?” I yelled. In the distance, a red baseball cap, sitting atop a fresh young face, nodded. My partner tossed the ball, swung the bat.
Ping! The bat sang as the ball rose in a high, lazy arc. Red cap bounded forward, circled. The ball paused for a moment, then headed toward earth. Red cap back-pedaled ...
...and missed the ball.
Coach Softy: Who hasn’t missed a fly ball?
Coach Meany: Why’d he miss that one?
Red cap didn’t do much better on subsequent attempts.
My pencil paused just above the sheet. I glanced at red cap. He looked like someone had stolen his iPhone. I sketched in, faintly: 2.
The morning passed. Some kids were a shoo-in; they’d been playing since T-ball days and it showed. Others exhibited promise, too.
Red cap? I worried about him.
Tryouts over, I went to Roth’s house later that day to help select the 2015 Wolves. We added players’ numbers, haggled over some findings, talked about character. It took 45 minutes.
Roth wrote the email that night:
"Please join me in congratulating the following students who will compose the 2015 ANCS Wolves Baseball Team. Coach Davis and I are looking forward to a great season. In no particular order:
“Huck Finch, Deangelo Nowell, Luke Crisp, Joseph Vatalaro, Will Dorn, Sam Davis, Max Finch, Reuben Davis, Callen Roth, Liam Dennis, Simone Rapier, Sam Cole, Alex Roberson and Joseph McGill.”
(We’d later add another youngster, Molly Merchant, who showed off her skills on a makeup date and became our 15th Wolf.)
Red cap wasn’t on the list.
My first baseball tryout? My brother made the team.
I was the kid in the red cap.
ABOUT THE REPORTER
Mark Davis joined the AJC in 2003 after working in Philadelphia, Tampa and his native North Carolina. A graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Davis has reported on heroes, bums and creatures that walk, swim, crawl and fly.
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Curtis Compton joined the AJC as a photo editor in 1993 before returning to the field as a staff photographer. Previously he worked for the Gwinnett Daily News, United Press International and the Marietta Daily Journal. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and won a World Hunger Award for his coverage of the famine in Sudan.
Brant Sanderlin has more than 20 years’ experience as a photojournalist, including 15 at the AJC. He shoots a variety of assignments, including front line action during the Iraqi war, sporting events, breaking news and human interest stories. He grew up on the family farm in eastern North Carolina.
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