COLUMN: Choosing sides

Life, they say, is all about choices.

Go down one road and its smooth sailing.

Embark on a journey down the other fork in the highway, the one filled with unknowns, and it can be like a ride down Grand Avenue in Billings, a major thoroughfare that no doubt resembles Swiss cheese when viewed from above thanks to a plethora of potholes.

Not Chuck holes. Potholes.

And like all things seem to be, choosing the right road is often a day-to-day, always-changing gamble. If I pick Johnny for my school yard basketball team, will he be dead eye Johnny, the kid who never misses a 15-foot shot.

Or will he be, on that day, can’t-hit-his-behind-with-both-hands Johnny, the kid who is sometimes known as “Air Ball”.

When I was a kid these major decisions were often decided with a baseball bat, even if the teams being crafted together were getting ready to play basketball, or football, heck, even “four-square” a game we played for hours on the corner sidewalk in front of Roger’s Market, my dad’s mom-and-pop grocery store on the north side of the “Magic City”.

For those unfortunate enough to never have taken part in such a serious ceremony as bat grabbing to see who picks first, it goes like this:

One of the two team “pickers” flips the bat gently into the air. A designated (the other side chooser) bat catcher tries to grab the bat with one hand as it begins its downward trajectory.

The grabber holds onto the bat and proudly displays it out in front of the circle of kids for all to see.

Then, the guys who are in team choosers take turns putting their hands on the bat, working their way toward the bat “knob”, the round end of the bat handle. One fist, by rule, had to be firmly up against the other fist as the grabbing grew in intensity.

The person who has enough room to get one more fist around the handle is the winner and therefore gets first pick from the assembled neighborhood players. Sometimes, the wise guy picker could call out “Eagle Claw” and if he could get the tips of his fingers around the round bat knob, he would be stealing the rights to first pick.

This act sometimes culminated in a punched nose, but that’s another topic altogether.

Picking sides was serious business. For one thing, no one wants to be the last kid picked and everyone wants to be the ego-boosting first pick.

I went to a parent-teacher conference one day when my son was somewhere around the fifth grade. At the end of the conference, the teacher said, “there is something you should know about your son”.

Uh-oh. He’s a really good kid, but he is a male kid and I braced for what I was about to hear.

“When the kids are choosing sides on the playground at recess, he always chooses the kid who is usually chosen last”.

Later, when I was talking with my boy about the choosing teams comment from his teacher, I asked him what was his reasoning for doing that.

“I remember when we moved here Dad,” he said. “No one knew me so I was at first the last kid picked and I didn’t want anyone else to feel like that”.

And you think there is pressure involved in the pro sports draft day shows with high dollar contracts at stake?

“Besides”, the fruit of my loin continued, “It doesn’t matter who I pick, my team will still kick butt”.

Yeah, son, those are tears of “joy”.

Flip the bat next time.