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me the baby had just chucked a piece of Waterford across the dining room,
    I’d say: “All the way across? Was it on an arc or more of a clothesline throw? How about the accuracy?” She’d hang up.
    When he could sit up a little bit, at least when propped, we played a little “catch.” It was sort of like one of those carnival midway games: I’d toss a tiny little ball and see if it would come to rest on a roll of fat or a protrusion of some kind, somewhere on his person. When it did, I’d haul out the camcorder.
    I figured when the kid could stand, he was ready for batting practice. I bought the Biiiiig fat, red plastic bat at K-Mart and the really Biiiiig white plastic ball, to get Willie in the swing of things. The technique I recommend is getting on your knees about three feet away (just far enough to not get hit by the Biiiiig bat), yell “Swing!” then toss the ball where the bat might be. (You determine this by having the child take several practice swings.) If the child hits the ball or even swings the bat, you cheer wildly. But don’t worry, you will, you will. However, there are other fathers who eschew positive reinforcement, preferring to touch the kid lightly with a cattle prod when he misses. Your call.
    Another daydream I had when my wife was pregnant was taking my son to a major league game. Here, fathers also tend to jump the gun a bit. Last year a Bostonian in the stands at the Red Sox spring training camp in Florida held his—snoozing—six-month-old son and said to me: “I just had to bring him down so he could see this.”
    In my daydream, my unborn son would be sitting there in a blue baseball cap slightly askew or pulled down too far on his head, his little legs dangling, not long enough to reach the ground. He is wearing his little baseball glove on one hand and eating a hot dog with the other, chewing on the ends of both glove and dog. The weather is perfect, of course, sunny and mild, about seventy-six degrees. Our seats are very good. The home team is winning. My son adores me. My tie is loosened, my sleeves are rolled up, and I am (somehow) handsome.
    Unfortunately, we lived on the North Side of Chicago when my son was a toddler, so the first game he saw was a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. I know of no finer place to watch a baseball game, although many of us have come to realize that raising a child to be a Cubs fan is a particularly heinous form of child abuse—with lifelong consequences.
    Back in Illinois in 1955, my grandfather told me that, well, sure, it had been ten long years since the Cubs had won a pennant but that—doggone it!—I should show some loyalty and stick with ’em! (We lived equidistant between Chicago and St. Louis and I was entertaining the idea of a switch to the Cardinals.) My grandfather was lucky. He died that year. Thirty-seven years later, I’m still waiting for the Cubs to do something.
    The reality of taking my son to a ballgame was somewhat less idyllic than the daydream. The home team, as is its custom, was not winning.
    And this being Chicago, and the month May, the weather was not quite perfect. It wasn’t bad for Chicago, I mean the airport wasn’t closed, yet, but it was drizzling a bit, the temperature just warm enough to keep the rain from solidifying. Hell, this was a nice day, springtime in Chicago—time to haul out the lawn furniture.
    Willie loved the food. He consumed one hot dog, one bag of peanuts, one box of popcorn, one coke and one ice cream bar in the first five innings. It was not the last we’d see of it.
    He asked for, and received, a Cubs cap, pennant and T-shirt. Counting my three beers and hot dog, the afternoon cost just under the Blue Book value of our Datsun wagon.
    Midway through the game, the light drizzle turned to rain. But! The Cubs were playing the Padres, and the San Diego chicken saved the day for Willie by running and sliding headfirst across the tarpaulin. By the time the rain delay was over, Willie was asleep.