The Launch Angle

“Daddy, for my birthday, I want to catch a home run or get a foul ball.”

My son was turning 7, sat in the back seat on our car with his older brother as we were drove to Daikin Park to watch Team USA take on Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic. We didn’t have any Team USA gear, so we just wore anything vaguely America-adjacent. For him, that was a “Cody Rhodes: The American Nightmare” WWE T-shirt.

“We’re not going to get a home run ball. We’re not in the right seats for that,” I answered, “and getting a foul ball is pretty rare. There’s just so many people, and only a handful of foul balls. I’ve been going to games for decades, and I’ve never gotten one.”

“Oh,” he said. I could hear the dejection in his voice, followed by the flicker of optimism. “Well, I still want one.”

We watched the game, ball or no ball, and had a great time. It was probably the first time that my son, with half a season of 7U Little League under his belt, was engaged for the whole game.

We went to the team store around the 3rd or 4th inning; I got my boys USA hats and also a USA shirsey for my youngest. It was his birthday, after all. As we stood in line for checkout, there was a bank of souvenir WBC baseballs for sale.

“Hey, they have baseballs for sale here,” I pointed out to him.

“Yeah, but they’re not real baseballs.”

Fair enough. I didn’t think about it again, until the bottom of the 7th. Canada’s Tyler O’Neill, came to the plate against USA’s David Bednar with 2 runners on in a 2-run game, and hit a 0-0 fastball up that was nowhere close to fair enough.

The batted ball went 75 feet in the air towards the first base side, teasing Club level fans before it dropped straight down into an aisle in the lower bowl. The aisle right next to me and my 7-year old, who had the aisle seat.

“Get up! Get it!” I exclaimed.

There was a mad dash from all nearby fans for the loose ball. The ball landed in the aisle, maybe 1-2 rows behind us, but bounced and rolled down the stairs towards my boy. For a 7-year old, he’s actually a pretty good fielder, but he’s still just 7.

The ball eluded him, but it’s not an error if your teammate backs you up and makes the play. I was his teammate; I came in behind him and grabbed it. The initial feeling of elation was interrupted by another man who tried to wrench the ball out of my hands, but there was no way I was going to let go of that ball. “Let me give it to my son. Let me give it to my son,” I pleaded, and he relented.

I handed the ball to my kid. “I told you I would get a ball!” he said, as happy as I’ve ever seen him. “Thank you, Daddy.”

You can’t tell me that any adult gets as much happiness out of a simple foul ball as a kid. I say that, but the happiness I got as a dad giving that to my son seems pretty close.

I know that is going to be as special a memory for him as it is for me. I think about all the sports moments my own father and I shared. They were mostly football related; I grew up in Buffalo, New York that didn’t have an MLB team, but they had the Bills. He didn’t grow up with either baseball or American football, and it wasn’t until I got older that I appreciated him taking the time to learn and get invested in football, so that he could share it with his kids. We’re all grown up now; my siblings and I still love sports. My dad doesn’t really pay attention to sports anymore. It’s not that he doesn’t like it. I just think his happiness came from sharing it with his kids, and I am thankful for that.

Happy Father’s Day, everyone.

Guardians @ Astros Game Information and Gamethread Details

Kai-Wei Teng starts for the Astros. His first few starts after being transitioned from the bullpen to the rotation were promising, but his last few he’s been trending in the direction. Since a 6 inning scoreless start on May 23 against the Cubs, Teng has pitched 5.0, 5.0, 4.0 and 3.1 innings and allowed 3, 4, 5 and 5 earned runs in the following 4 starts.

Each start he’s made it through fewer innings, and each start he’s given up more runs. With Cristian Javier coming back and Lance McCullers and Ronel Blanco in rehab, you have to wonder if it may be time to end the Kai-Wei-as-a-starter experiment, and put him back in the pen where he was arguably the most effective arm on staff for the first month of the season.

RHP Slade Cecconi faces off against Teng. Cecconi has a 4.60 ERA and 1.40 WHIP in 15 starts this season with a 3-5 record. He has a 7.5 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9, with a 4 seamer that averages 93.2 mph that he primarily pairs with a cutter and sinker. To lefties, he’ll mix in a curveball more often. He also has a slider, sweeper and a changeup he’ll occasionally use, but he does most of his work with fastballs.

This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.

The game will be broadcast at 1:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.

We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.

Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .

For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.

If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)

Feature photo from  @astros on X,  Source Link.