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The National Pastime Unblemished

USF camper Kyle Lee, 9, hones his swing every Saturday at a park with his uncle. Photo by Ethen Lieser.

By Ethen Lieser

Maybe it is just coincidence, but the middle name of Alexander Cartwright, the “Father of Modern Baseball,” is Joy. That’s right, Joy. What better man could have singled out one definitive word that so aptly describes our national pastime. But remember, Joy performed this joyous deed in 1845, when there weren’t any multimillion-dollar, ruddy-nose-to-the-sky, diaper-whining ballplayers roaming the field. It was just Joy.

Encapsulated from San Francisco’s wheezing traffic and suit-wearers with vise-gripped briefcases, is a paradise, or a garden. A paradise garden. Here, the summer grass is green as can be. Smiling children can be seen frolicking in the tingling afternoon sun, throwing, fielding, and hitting baseballs and sprawling in clouds of infield dirt. Even mommies can’t get mad about that here.

“Is this heaven?” one man asks in the movie Field of Dreams.

With the slightest tweak from the original script, Kevin Costner could have answered, “No, it’s Benedetti Diamond.”

USF assistant baseball coach Troy Nakamura is in his second year as camp director. Photo by Ethen Lieser.

Benedetti Diamond, home of the University of San Francisco’s baseball program, annually holds five week-long baseball camps between June and August. The camps are split into various age groups and skill levels to better accommodate each player’s interests and goals. Heading this two-year-old camp is USF assistant baseball coach Troy Nakamura, who himself was a former gritty player for the Dons from 1995-1998.

“The numbers for this year’s camps have doubled from last year because I had time to prepare for it,” says Nakamura while intently watching his campers warm up on the diamond. “Last year, I only had one month to prepare.”

The number for the first session (June 18 – 21) is close to 70 — that’s 70 angels in a paradise garden.

With a face that can instantly brighten up any rainout, 9-year-old Kyle Lee loosens his fourth-grader joints on the on-deck circle. He looks “cute,” dressed in his full-fledged baseball uniform topped off by a crooked Giants cap — just don’t say that to his face. With a worn batting helmet on his head, Lee’s ability to stand upright seems to defy the laws of physics. His top-heavy, adorably disproportionate head looks as if it will topple over any second. But Lee’s no angel. To pitchers, he is just downright evil. “My uncle taught me to play baseball,” Lee says. “He goes to the park with me every Saturday.”

“Whatcha gonna do?” asks a teammate.

“I’m gonna hit a single,” Lee says confidently.

Lee strolls up to the plate, digs in the batter’s box, takes a couple of warm-up swings, stares down the overgrown coach pitching to him, and then — BAM! — it’s a howling liner to center field. Lee grinds the dirt into powder smoke like a revved-up mo-ped. The centerfielder misplays the hard shot. Lee takes a wicked turn at first base and screams toward second. His tiny legs and arms pump like red-hot pistons. Then, in an instant, the chaos ends.

“Safe!” yells the coach who just surrendered the bullet shot to center.

Moments later, Lee easily scores on a base hit by a teammate. He takes off his batting helmet, slaps a high-five and trudges to the bat rack.

“That’s a single with an error,” he grins.

Though it might not take a lot to prod a sheepish grin from Lee, Nakamura is making sure it happens on a baseball diamond. “I come from Hawaii, so outdoor sports there are really big,” Nakamura says. “And when I came here, I realized that from a facilities standpoint, there aren’t many fields. So, I feel it’s my duty to raise the level of interest in baseball.”

It is also his duty to teach the right way. “The coaches treat you in a nice way so you can learn better,” says 11-year-old Adrian Fernandez, a two-year veteran of the camp. Nakamura constructively instills the basic fundamentals into each player, understanding that baseball — like life — is a game tainted with failure. If a player fails, Nakamura is there to pick up the camper.

“Our main focus with these kids is that they are respectful and able to communicate with each other,” Nakamura says. “If we can develop a good person, we have the ability to teach the baseball aspects of it, and naturally, it will cross over into real life.”

Perhaps Alexander Cartwright did foresee baseball as a mirror of real life. Or maybe he just saw his creation as the perfect playground. But if he was in the bleachers on this magical afternoon, he could only say one thing: “This is absolute Joy.”

Reach Ethen Lieser at elieser@asianweek.com.