The Boys of Summer

As a latchkey kid, and the child of a single mother, the only organized sport I played was Catholic Youth basketball. There were six boys in my class, and the five of us who played were the starting five by the second year. You can imagine how good we were, drawing from such a deep pool. Wearing number 10, I was little more than a decoy on the court. I set a lot of picks in failed pick and rolls. I would walk or take the public bus home from practice. But organized basketball is a winter sport.

In the summers, I might go out and join a whiffle ball game in the nearby park, but I envied the neighbor boys who played baseball, which was the favorite sport of the house I grew up in. My grandmother would force me to watch Mets games and call my attention to her Mets heroes, Darryl Strawberry or John Franco. We didn’t have the organizational resources as a family to put me in Little League. I was the equivalent of an iPad kid undergoing full brain rot in the 1980s. Mom was up at her office job, grandma was in the garden. I was in front of a Nintendo. I didn’t get my first baseball glove until I was in my 30s. My brother-in-law bought it for me so we could play catch on family beach vacations.

About the Author

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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As a latchkey kid, and the child of a single mother, the only organized sport I played was Catholic Youth basketball. There were six boys in my class, and the five of us who played were the starting five by the second year. You can imagine how good we were, drawing from such a deep pool. Wearing number 10, I was little more than a decoy on the court. I set a lot of picks in failed pick and rolls. I would walk or take the public bus home from practice. But organized basketball is a winter sport.

In the summers, I might go out and join a whiffle ball game in the nearby park, but I envied the neighbor boys who played baseball, which was the favorite sport of the house I grew up in. My grandmother would force me to watch Mets games and call my attention to her Mets heroes, Darryl Strawberry or John Franco. We didn’t have the organizational resources as a family to put me in Little League. I was the equivalent of an iPad kid undergoing full brain rot in the 1980s. Mom was up at her office job, grandma was in the garden. I was in front of a Nintendo. I didn’t get my first baseball glove until I was in my 30s. My brother-in-law bought it for me so we could play catch on family beach vacations.