Sammy, Tammy, and Me

Dave was bursting with well-deserved pride. Before Sam could say a word he said, "Absolutely marvelous! Sam is an athlete through and through, and she's sure shown it in learning this game. I think the older players, who've been doing this for years, are going to be astonished. I had no idea she had such a good arm. The ball is hard to get hold of for a long throw, but she can get it from the right field corner to Tammy at shortstop with no problem. We're talking about Tammy calling the shot to one of the infielders directly, to save the time that a relay takes. We need to try it in a practice game to be sure she can get it there without pulling the baseman off the bag, but I'm already sure she can get it to me at first."

"So your star pupil is ready for the season. How's it look to you, Sam?"

"It all feels better every time we practice. Dave and Tammy are great coaches. Remember when I looked at that huge ball in the store with you, and thought I could never hold that, much less throw it."

Tammy just smiled. "You haven't been out there with us lately, Dick. Wait till you see these two working together. Different but totally in synch. Sam is impatient, wants to get it exactly right every time. Dave is as patient as anybody I've ever watched. Between the two of them, they're as good a player-coach team as Tiger Woods and his father."

Dave said, "I went to see Harry Simpson at lunchtime last week. He gave me the layout of the fields we'll be playing on. There are three of them that are already marked out for striping, and they'll all be the same. They're old baseball diamonds with the mounds leveled off, and the outfield shortened with portable fencing, like the snow fence we had along the highways back home. The fence is a circular arc with home plate as the center, so it's the same distance all around. I paced off the distance to shortstop and first base from the right field corner, and Sam's been able to practice just as if we were on a real diamond. Those paper plates you came up with work great."

I thought a little about all that. "I wonder how it's going to go in a game. Sam will be all prepared, but she'll get very few balls hit out there. Left handers, yes. But I don't see the kind of right handers we'll be up against being able to delay their swing to put one out to right. What I'm getting at is that Todd may want to move Sam over to center. Easier throw to short, but a longer throw to first. You ready for that, Sam?"

"Well now that you've warned me, I'll get ready. Right, coach?"

Tammy asked, "How's the camera coming along, Dick? Is that getting easier with practice, too?"

"Yeah, it seems to be. My trouble is that I get too interested in what's happening in front of me. I was in the park yesterday and a bluejay was screaming his head off at a dog, and then dive bombing the poor dog. I started off with the camera on the jay, then zoomed back out to get the jay and the dog, and then I just forgot all about the camera and watched the show. Got about a minute of my feet. So the test is to see if I can remember that I'm a cameraman, not a spectator. Other than that, I think it'll work out. Terry's planning to do a practice game with me, and I hope he can do an evening game, too. Trouble is that in a bar like the Half Time, Friday evenings are prime drinking hours, and he has to give his business top priority. We'll have to see how it works out."

As usual, while the girls cleaned up the mess I'd made in the kitchen, Dave and I relaxed on the patio with a frosty one. I opened the conversation with the observation, "Sam seems to be really excited about playing softball, and yet she never played a sport before that uses a ball. You've done an amazing job, selling her on it and getting her skills developed so she's not afraid of looking silly."

"It was a two phase operation. She started it by talking us out of playing in the macho league. Looking back, that was a good move for us. As a group we weren't up to their level of play, and we would've looked like a bunch of idiots. But the reason she gave was so we could have our women along with us, and it would be fun for both sides, men and women, to be doing something together. Another thing she said is that women are reluctant to do something in public that they don't do well, but since we'd all be in it together it wouldn't be like that. And she said it would be a good chance for us men to show our superiority, and help our poor little wives and girlfriends along. I didn't think about that much at the time, but I was at home flipping channels the next night and every prime time show that night was a sitcom with the husband being a buffoon and the wife and her friends being right all the time. So I saw that she had a point there. She definitely won us over. Sarah felt the same way as Sam, but she said very little, just backed up Sam with a few words. It was a side of Sam that I'd never seen before. She showed a lot of understanding for the men and women, sort of ratcheted back and forth with both points of view. And even though she said things we'd never thought about before, we could see that she was right in everything she said.

"I came away very proud of her. It all reflected well on me. Here I was, one of the youngest guys in the group, and I had this cute little doll of a girlfriend who could have got along on her looks alone. Yet she was the smartest person in the room that night. A couple of the guys even said to me, 'You really can pick a winner, bro.' Got any idea how that made me feel? I left there walking on air."

"I can just imagine. I've been so glad she decided to move here instead of staying in Boston. Seems to me that there's more for her here. She's been a delight to have living here. Oh, we've had a couple of minor differences of opinion, but we've always ironed them out easily, never any hard feelings. That project with her little house showed me what she's capable of. I made a suggestion one night and she took the ball and carried it over the goal line with nobody blocking for her. And look how well it turned out. She has good taste."

"Sure. That's how she picked me."

"Well, yes. I agree. Let me leave you with something to think about later. You've done a great job of teaching and coaching, but have you thought about why Sam has been so receptive? In your experience, learning a sport that fast would be attributed to a desire to play, and play well. This is something a little different. Her motivation is all about you. She loves you, and she wants to do anything that will make you think well of her. She's willing to make herself over for you. When you're sitting in traffic or waiting at a red light, toss that around in your head.

"You're good for her, no doubt about that. I want to say 'Glad to have you in the family, Dave," but you aren't in the family. Well, not yet. How does the future look to you now? Any different from the last time we talked about it? Any thoughts you want to share?"

"Maybe a little bit. When you and Tammy went off to the mountains together and came back engaged, it sort of jolted both of us. Not just me. We'd already been getting very serious, and had even talked about moving in together, but I don't think we'd come to the onramp for the matrimony highway. Not because we wouldn't want to marry, but because it hadn't occurred to us. Kind of stupid, I guess, both of us in our twenties but thinking more like teenagers. So what you and Tammy did got us thinking about it. I'm sure that some day I would've wanted to get married, and there's nobody in the world for me but Sam. And I think she feels the same. But you know, we're both sort of shy when it comes to talking about things like this."

"Really? I'm surprised at that. The two of you are so close that I'd think you could explore any subject comfortably. Want a suggestion?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

"Next time you two are out practicing, at the end when you're walking back together, say, 'I hope it's this easy when we have to teach our kids to catch a ball or throw a pass.' Then see what she says to that."

"She'll probably pass out right on the grass."

"Well, that's better than a paved parking lot. But I think she might surprise you. As we've mentioned before, you have a long life ahead of you. But to a woman, three-zero is a big number. They've got it in their heads that they want to get pregnant with their first kid before then. We all have silly things like that lodged in our heads, you know. Think how proud men feel because they can take a leak standing up, as if it makes us superior to women. Sharing a few words about kids might give her the little bit of reassurance that she needs as her clock ticks away. I don't mean actually proposing, just letting her know that the idea isn't completely foreign to your thinking."

"But won't that make her think she's got me? That I'm already roped and tied?"

"Dave, get real! How do you think she looks at you now? As a stranger? Or maybe the world's longest one night stand? She sees how possessive you feel toward her. Don't you think she feels the same?

"Here's a mental exercise for you. Now I'm perfectly serious about this. Go home tonight and get relaxed, ready for bed, and sit in the best chair you've got, looking out the window or at a wall or whatever, so that your thoughts can roam. Imagine that the two of you are breaking up. Ask yourself how you feel about it. Are you willing to stand there and let her walk away, or are you ready to move heaven and earth to prevent it? Then go right to bed. You'll wake up in the morning with a much clearer sense of priorities. Then come back here and we'll sit like this and you can tell me all about it."

* * * * * *

The next morning all hell broke loose. About five I woke up to the sound of car tires squealing around the corner and screeching to a stop. Then, as I sat up and tried to make sense out of what I was hearing, there were footsteps running across the gravel driveway and up the steps to Sam's front door. Tammy sat up. "Dick, what's going on?" Should I call 911?"

"Wait till I look out the window. No, don't call anybody. But go and put a pot of coffee on, right now. Make a full pot."

I went through our house to the door into Sam's little house. "Sam! Are you all right?"

Dave's voice answered, "It's okay, Dick. Everything's all right. Now."

A half hour later, Dave and Sam came into the kitchen. I was there sipping a cup of coffee. Tammy came in from the other direction, fresh from her shower, looking for a cup. I stood up and started pouring cups of coffee as if my name was Starbuck. Dave and Sam looked rumpled. He wore a sweat suit and his hair was all wrinkled and messed up. She had on a robe, and looked as if she'd just got up and was still a little dazed. They thanked me for the coffee and sipped a bit. Then Dave said, "We're both taking today off from work."

Sam said, "We've got some personal business to attend to. I'll get cleaned up, then we'll go to Dave's apartment so he can do the same. Then we've got an errand to run. We'll probably be back here early in the afternoon. Tammy, please tell the people at work that this is urgent personal business that came up suddenly, and that I'll be in tomorrow as usual."

Dave added, "Sorry to alarm you this morning. It was very urgent, couldn't wait."

I nodded and took another mouthful of coffee. It was an easy way to keep from laughing out loud, as long as I didn't choke, or spray coffee all over.

* * * * * *

Dave and Sam came in around three. They were walking awkwardly. He was reaching way around her and had his hand and a piece of tissue paper hiding Sam's left hand. They came and stood together in front of my chair and in unison, said "Ta-da!" as she pulled her hand out and shoved it under my nose. There sat one of the most beautiful diamond rings I had ever seen up close. Looked very familiar.

I tried to act surprised. Really, I tried very hard.

Then I got on the phone with Tammy. "You've got to come home, right this instant. Hurry."

She did. When she walked in she was smiling. Sam shoved her hand under Tammy's nose without a word, and Tammy gasped. She was looking at the exact duplicate of her ring!

The two girls hugged each other and danced around holding on. I shook Dave's hand and congratulated him, adding, "Hey, I can say it now. Welcome to the family. Finally!"

* * * * * *

Well, there's not much more to tell. We had a successful first season with the Comets, coming in tied for second. We established a custom of gathering at the Half Time every Tuesday night to watch the video of the latest game on Terry's immense flat screen TV. It was a serious coaching opportunity, Todd and Sarah spotting problems and everybody, including other bar patrons, offering friendly, helpful suggestions about how to handle the problem if it should arise again. But it was also a chance to relive the suspense of the game and the relief when we got out of an inning that had turned against us. The closing ceremony every week was one of the guys reading us the write-up about Haley's Comets, clipped from the newspaper, where Grover Haley's nephew just happened to be a sportswriter. If the girls did something extra good, there was a paragraph about Sammy and Tammy, which invariably mentioned that they were employed by the team sponsor, Haley Insurance Agency. If there was a group picture, Haley's girls were sure to be in the front row. You can color Grover Haley as a businessman who knows the value of advertising. According to Sam, there's been a steady flow of new business from young, married couples, so maybe the sponsorship did pay off.

To be fair, I have to say that Grover was super-generous with his sponsorship, and Haley's Comets had the best of everything. It all started with two uniform shirts each, and at mid season each player got a spare uniform - shirt and matching shorts - in the mail. They had balls, bats, helmets, in plenty - everything they could want. Even shiny whistles for the coaches. My camera recorded the game onto flash drives, and I had a whole box of them, enough for about fifty years. I pointedly didn't tell anybody what the camera outfit cost me, because if Grover found out he'd have sent me a check in the mail for that. The team took Grover's excesses in stride. Obviously, he thought the advertising was well worth what he was paying. To the other players, having the sponsor fuss over "his girls" was just part of playing the game. If they started feeling a bit restless about Grover, all they had to do was talk with the other teams about their sponsors and they came back more tolerant than ever of Grover and his excesses.

Then there was a letter that Grover sent out to each member of his team at the end of the season. He congratulated them on a successful season, and announced that anybody who signed up to play for the second year would be offered insurance at a 5% discount. That little gesture of friendship, to quote Terry Morrissey, "beats hell out of a handshake."

On the home front, engagements obviously are intended to culminate in weddings, and we've all accepted that now. Sam and Tammy want to have a double wedding. Dave and I look at each other and shrug. These things are important to women, and we' re willing to let them have things their way. Tammy would like to have it at the lodge where we were engaged, but so far Sam and Dave haven't made it up there to look the place over. Oh, that reminds me, if they should decide to keep the festivities down here in the desert, Terry has offered us the use of the Half Time for our reception. Decisions, decisions!

To wrap up the issues that are still hanging, we haven't decided yet whether we want to have a weekend and vacation getaway home in the mountains. Every time we start to lean toward it, there's a forest fire somewhere and we get turned off again. But although I never told anybody, I bought that plot of land that seemed to have so much potential, just in case. Even if we never build there, it's still a good investment.

Tammy and I are still living in my "big" house, while Sam and Dave are living together in her "little" house. Her mortgage and home improvement payments, very reasonable before, are even more so with the raises she's got since then, and now with Dave banking the twelve hundred a month that he was paying for apartment rent, the kids are salting away money like crazy. Whenever they decide to build a place of their own, I bet it'll be a beauty.

Meanwhile, all four of us are doing that thing we've had our hearts set on since early childhood. If you haven't tried it, you really should. What is it? Oh, come on, think back to when your grandmother used to read you children's stories. Yeah, that's right.

Move over, Snow White. We're living happily ever after!