The bleachers behind our dugout are aluminum, and at 7 p.m. in March they still hold the afternoon sun. Most weeknights this spring, when Dana isn't working, that's where my family can be found. Maya sits on the top row with a library book and her headlamp ready for when the light goes. Nico works the fence line, collecting rocks out of the gravel. Dana sits in the middle with a bag of sunflower seeds and the schedule open on her phone. Between pitches you can hear the ping of aluminum bats from the JV field next door and somebody's mom yelling "good eye."
What the season actually looks like
I've been an assistant coach since 2017. I work with our catchers and hitters, which makes sense, since I caught in high school and have been explaining to teenagers how to block a ball in the dirt ever since. The season takes a big piece of the year:
- Tryouts the last week of January.
- Practice most weekdays after school, usually until about 5:30.
- Games from mid-February into late April, mostly weeknights at 7, plus some Saturdays.
- Playoffs into May, if we keep winning.
On a game day I leave the house at 6:15 a.m. and get home around 10 p.m. That's three or four days a week, every week, for about three months.
How the rest of the family makes it work
The hardest days are the ones when my game lands on one of Dana's shifts. She works 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., so on those days neither of us can get the kids after school. That's when Dana's mom, Marisol, comes through. She picks them up, feeds them dinner in Westchester and has them bathed and in pajamas by the time one of us gets there. Rafael calls me after every game to ask the score and whether our catcher threw anybody out.
Dana self-schedules her shifts about six weeks ahead, and in January she plans around the baseball calendar as much as she can. It isn't perfect. Some weeks she works three days in a row while I'm gone three nights, and the kids get us both in pieces. They handle it better than we do.
Nico started T-ball this spring, on Saturday mornings. I'm not his coach. I'm a parent in the bleachers with a coffee, which is harder than it sounds for someone who spends all week telling teenagers where to stand. He's five and mostly interested in the dirt, the anoles along the outfield fence and the snack schedule. Last Saturday he made a really nice stop on a ground ball and then sat down on it, like it might get away. I didn't say a word. Dana says I was squeezing my cup hard enough to dent it.
Why the camping goes quiet
We fit in MLK weekend at Long Pine Key before tryouts, and Presidents' Day weekend at Blue Spring, because our head coach never schedules anything over that holiday. After that, the tent stays in the storage room off the carport until spring break. We have a tournament Monday to Wednesday of that week, then we leave for Curry Hammock on Thursday for three nights. After that, nothing until the season ends.
That stings a little, because March in South Florida is beautiful camping weather. Low dew points, cool mornings, the Everglades still mostly free of mosquitoes. I drive past the turnoff for Long Pine Key in my head about once a week.
So we camp in small ways. On Sunday nights after a Saturday game, we light the backyard fire pit, cook hot dogs or test a new pie iron sandwich, and the kids stay up a little past bedtime. Dana plans the summer from the couch with a legal pad, building our June trip to the Smokies around the five nights at Elkmont we booked in December. Maya keeps a countdown to Curry Hammock in orange on the fridge calendar. It said 9 days this morning.
I turned 38 last Friday, at a game. We won by two. After the last out, Dana and the kids were waiting in the parking lot with a Publix cake on the hood of the Pilot and five candles on it, because, Nico explained, that's how many fit.
