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In Praise of Joe Sobran


June 21, 2001

In most people’s minds, I suppose, the name Joe Sobran conjures up a trenchant political columnist and towering Shakespeare scholar. But some readers of this space may also associate it with the writer’s 14-year-old grandson, a promising baseball player.

Last year I reported that Joe had led his league in hitting with a .510 average, secured when he got four hits in the last game of the season. I also described the sensational fielding plays with which he brought crowds to their feet.

This year Joe has dwelt with his mother in Virginia Beach, far from the devoted grandfather who supplied his baseball genes and molded him into perhaps the supreme sports talent of his generation. For the first time in his life, I’ve had to rely on the telephone to follow his exploits on the diamond. We’ve conversed after every game, my heart aching because I couldn’t see him in person.

That’s how I heard he’d belted two home runs in one game a few weeks ago. He’s growing up. He used to be so little that I advised him simply to concentrate on contact, avoiding strikeouts and leaving the slugging to the big boys. I can’t tell you how cute he was, the tiniest and most agile kid in the infield. His uniform always looked several sizes too big, though he wore the smallest one on the team.

[Breaker quote: Maybe he has to 
be modest; his grandfather doesn't.]Not anymore. Joe has grown taller than his mother and has filled out with a thick neck and shoulders; I hardly recognize him from behind. And he’s a pitcher now.

Actually, he started pitching a couple of years ago, but he was erratic, with as many walks as strikeouts. Now it’s mostly strikeouts. A couple of weeks ago he called to tell me he’d lost a tough game, 3 to 1, in which he struck out 18 batters in six innings, giving up one hit and one walk. He’d struck out the first 13 hitters he faced!

So how did he manage to lose? Errors, he explained. The catcher dropped the ball on the third strike several times, so several of Joe’s victims got on base and scored. He didn’t complain, though; he never blames his teammates. He was satisfied to have done his best. He’d used six different pitches; I warned him, as usual, against throwing too many curves before his arm matures. (As usual, he shrugged off my warning.)

Joe did sound almost plaintive after his next game, in which he struck out 10 in five innings and lost again because of errors. Again he refused to blame anyone, but I got the definite impression that his patience was being tried.

It was time for me to take a look at this pitching phenom. I threw the dog and the cell phone into the car and headed for Virginia Beach, arriving two hours before game time. Joe was scheduled to pitch in what was expected to be the last game of the season.

When we got to the field, I felt a surge of pleasure at the way Joe’s teammates’ parents spoke of him, as if everything depended on him. And it was obvious they liked him very much. We’ve never had to urge modesty on him; it comes naturally.

As the game began, Joe’s fastball took charge. It was much quicker than I’d ever seen it. Nobody could hit it, fair or foul. He also threw a few pitches that looked suspiciously like curves. Nobody touched them, either.

In the first inning he struck out the side. He did it again in the second inning. By the time he struck out the first two batters in the third inning, I was getting ideas. But the official superstitions of baseball forbade me to voice them. Meanwhile, his teammates were racking up lots of runs for him, while giving up only one (on a pair of errors, need I add).

The final score was 14 to 1. Joe finished with 13 strikeouts, one hit batter — and a no-hitter.

After the game, I made an all-out assault on his modesty, pounding his back and yelling my innermost thoughts. He allowed himself a faint grin. “It didn’t seem like a no-hitter,” he said.

It did to me.

Joseph Sobran

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