Baseball en France

I played softball for only one season as a child and I don’t remember being any good at it.  In fact, I don’t remember much about it at all, except that my father was a coach and I like going to practice with him.  Oh, and I liked getting ice cream at the Dairy Queen after our games. 

Baseball was an insignificant part of my life in Dallas, Oregon.  Growing up in an old logging town, sports were limited to what they could fund.  Football, basketball sure – some tennis and track.  Our high school had a baseball team, but I couldn’t tell you who was on it or where the field even was.  Dallas just wasn’t much of a baseball town. 

Anyway, I find it a strange twist that as I sit here beside a baseball field in Nice, France, this is where I feel strangely right at home. 

True, the last few years of my life have been following my two sons around southern California and beyond to watch them play baseball.  As my sons used to tell me in Los Angeles:  “Mom, it’s baseball all day, every day.”

So, I’ve become a baseball mom – baptized in little league and pony ball.  Hence why I’m again planted right next to this fence watching practice far from home. 

At one stage last year, my son’s coach suggested that I drop the kids off at practice and go do something else.  I was so confused…why would I leave and miss it?  “Ok”, he conceded, “Stay.  But maybe just back up off the fence a few feet.” 

Fine…I backed up a few inches.

Our sons, and in particular our older one, love this game.  He can’t get enough of the drama and the suspense, the science and analytics, the feel of the bat and ball in his hands.  Baseball is in his blood.  So when we thought about coming to France, my husband, Bobby, set out to find a solution. 

Baseball isn’t a French thing.  Football (soccer) is their soul.  Rugby, tennis, golf, and basketball too.  Baseball is a language shared by only a few here.  We were surprised to find anything resembling a team. 

But he found Cavigal Nice (as in the city, Nice…not in their lack of competitive mindset!).  Cavigal is a baseball and softball organization with a few younger teams and an adult men’s team. 

But it’s actually more than a team.   It’s a brotherhood – joined by the comradery of a common mission and a passion understood by only the fringe athletes.  They are swimming against the current – proselytizing a new way of life and dedicated to making a home for baseball here.  And so they drill and practice with determination – and a tinge of excitement of the potential of their group.

And they’ve done incredibly well.  Their 15U team won the French champion title in Paris this last weekend.  In a few weeks, they will head to Spain to represent France in the European championship.  Pretty impressive for their humble operations on a dirt lot in an industrial part of Nice.

Today is the first day I’ve seen them practice.  And I’m loving the scrappy feel of this team.  It is quite a contrast to the immaculate turf football and rugby pitch across the street – filled with kids in crisp gear and shiny equipment. 

Cavigal practices on a large, unmarked lot on what appears to be compacted dirt and sand.  No grass to be seen and no fences other than those marking the edge of the property.  They have raised a mound with some extra dirt, which appears to be regulation.  When the players dig in their feet at home plate to take batting practice, they gradually sink down about 6-8 inches by the fourth or fifth player. 

The have a club house which appears to be an old cement structure of some sort that houses a shed for their equipment.  The coach rolls out an old shopping cart with a few baseballs in the bottom.  It rained yesterday, but that doesn’t matter – they just sidestep the mud puddles and play on. 

Frankly, I dig it.

In the westside of Los Angeles, baseball is religion, and we parents pour all kinds of money into making it picture perfect.  Beautifully manicured fields are protected like porcelain dolls.  When it rains in LA, which is rare, it could be days until the fields are declared sufficiently dry for people to even walk on.  Everywhere there are batting cages with pitching machines and training equipment. 

The kids carry enough gear and gear to turn your head.  Our boys had two or three gloves each, custom arm sleeves and elbow guards, multiple bats, training aids, a couple pair of Oakley baseball sunglasses.  The industry built around equipment bags just to get all of this to the fields is booming. 

Practices are twice a week plus batting practice.  Games twice a week.  And that just one team.  Some kids (including mine) play on their little league or pony team as well as a club team.  And a version of this goes almost year round.

We parents join right in.  I used to lug loads of spectator gear to games (often in wagons) – stadium seats and speakers to blare walk up songs and mid-inning rally music.  As the seasons goes into playoffs, custom merchandise is worn to support your player’s team – hats, shirts, jackets, face paint. 

In addition to concession stands, families are responsible for bringing “snack”.  And this isn’t oranges and crackers.  These are fully catered meals: appetizers and cocktails transitioning to mains and desserts mid-game.  If you have visions of catering chefs on the sidelines making sushi or tacos, you’re not far off. 

So it’s truly refreshing to be watching my son go to work on this humble field today.  No frills, no pretty presentation. 

Look, it’s easy to love baseball when it comes packaged into a curated experience…when you feel like you are stepping out onto the Field of Dreams (or Dodger Stadium) every day. 

But it takes something special to lace up and work on your craft when the field is raw and soggy.  That’s when passion and determination show up.  That’s when the drive to play comes from deep inside. 

There are so many reasons why I am proud of these young men who I am lucky enough to call my sons.  But today, I am emotional because despite the challenges, here is Noah taking his position at short stop.  5000 miles from home on a dirt lot, knowing no one, and taking coaching in a language he barely speaks. 

And now here he is taking live batting practice with the Evergreen Bat Co wood bat that is dad made for him. His eyes are narrowed, his mouth set as he awaits the coach’s pitch. 

He swings with courage.

               He swings with strength.

                              He swings with his whole heart. 

And he is doing the damn thing.