Part Two

Truth be told, I was not a very good father early on. I always had been very career driven and the pressure of having a wife and child to support kicked the career drive to newer loftier heights – I was working a bunch, 70/80 hours a week and 7 days a week.

Kids sports was not on my radar at all, after all, what little I was home, I was surrounded by “girly” things. What sports can a girl play? I knew that there was softball for girls and figured that there had to be a league for it at the younger ages. Basketball and Volleyball, sure in high school, but that was way down the road.
I do remember thinking, she could be a cheerleader and we can go to the Friday night high school football game to watch her cheer.
Girls Football, not gonna happen, girls Hockey, not my little princess – both of those sports were “manly, men” sports and no girl ever could or should play them.

Kirsten turns 4 years old and as I recall, Kim informed me that she had sighed her up for T-Ball. It turned out, I knew the coach and thought sure, and this could be a good thing. I doubt I ever took Kirsten to a practice, but I know I did not miss a game. It was fun; the kids were so little and were all so bad it was fun. Kirsten was fairly terrible, but sure enough it was dad’s fault.
Kirsten is a “lefty” so I had taken her out and got her a glove for her right hand and figured that would be good enough. It turns out, she did much better at baseball playing right handed, batted better and threw much better – so a new glove was in order. It was a fun season, the parents were all in control of themselves and no one there thought the next “Mickey Mantel” was playing.
Disaster struck, with about two games left in the season. Kim is giving Kirsten a bath and finds head lice on her. God love my wife, we run out and get the treatment and the comb, get the detergent for the bed cloths and get to work. Kim reads the labels of the toxic chemicals and decides she ain’t putting that on her baby and sets up till wee hours in the morning picking through Kirsten’s head – she got them all.
The lice came from the shared batting helmet – the team was infected and Kim decides enough of the baseball – thus ended Kirsten’s Baseball career.