Hey, Murphy, Wanna Play?

My 7-year-old son, Isaac, wanted to wear the shirt every day. The royal blue color had long since faded to a less vibrant hue. The neck was stretched to almost double its original size. The white letters, framed in bright red, had worn cracks running through them along with its famous number 3, an homage to Dale Murphy, the 1980s Atlanta Braves fan favorite. A hand-me-down piece, it was his first choice on most days including this one. We rode away from serving dinner at the church, trying to kill time.

“Let’s go to the dinosaur park!” Isaac, and his sisters, exclaimed. I, the one quick to say no to anything not planned, actually agreed.

We drove through the old streets where we lived when they were smaller and reminisced on the years we spent there. Too young to remember most of it, he still liked to hear the stories shared by his older sister and me. 

“This is the house that always had the garage sales. Every weekend we walked down during the sale to buy a hot dog,” Reese reminded them.

“A pit bull lived over there in that house; one day it charged at us while I was pushing the stroller,” I said, “We never walked down that street again!”

We pulled up at the park and they leapt from the van. They knew this place. It was a part of their history. We all felt at home there.

We noticed the two boys right away. The first boy, dark skinned and skinny, possessed the one glove between them. The other boy was pale, like us, and tall. He held the bat. There wasn’t a diamond or even a home plate. They simply envisioned the bases at the corners of the rectangular concrete slab positioned in the grass of the field.

We took turns playing on the green dinosaur and they all laughed to think they were once small enough to fit on it with me. I remembered holding their chubby faces in my hand to keep the neck of the dinosaur from hitting their chins.

We swung high in the swings and watched the sky begin to turn from a tranquil blue to a softer pink with traces of yellow while Isaac played with the broken little excavator toy in the sandpit. But mostly, we all watched the two boys. They didn’t seem to think they were on a slab of concrete, and they certainly didn’t seem to notice there were only two of them. 

I was pushing the girls on the tire swing. As they giggled and screamed to go higher, Isaac got off the excavator and came to hide behind my leg.

“Are you watching those big boys play?” I asked him.

No answer.

“Do you want to play someday?”

A slight shake of his head. He looked away for a second to kick the beetle that was scuttling across the rocks.

And then, loud and clear, came the call, “Hey, Murphy, wanna play?” 

Isaac froze for a brief second and then looked up at me. His face filled with both desire and fear, wanting so badly to play but also scared to try. 

“Go ahead,” I whispered.

“Come on, Murphy, we need another good player,” the tall one beckoned.

Again he looked up at me, pleading for help with his eyes. I gave him a little push toward them.

He never answered. He didn’t utter a sound. But he did go, and the tall one helped him position his bat.

“Hold it just like this,” he said, “and swing when I tell ya to.”

The skinny boy pitched him the ball. He missed.

“That’s alright, Murphy. We’ll give it another ride.”

The ball sailed through the air again. He missed again.

After several pitches, the skinny one called out, “Come on, Danny. He struck out.”

“No, he didn’t. Just pitch again. This is Dale Murphy here. He’s gonna hit it.”

The girls were sitting beside me now on the wooden curb that separated the playground from the grassy area. We were close, but not too close. Still, I could see him getting discouraged. 

“Please, let him hit the ball,” I silently prayed.

The sky was now pink and red. Dusk was encroaching. I watched my boy, my Murphy, step up to the plate for one last time. 

Crack!

It happened.

“Woo-hoo. Go, Murphy, go! All the way around, Murphy!” our new friend said as he swung his right arm through the air motioning for him to run around the concrete.

The ball hadn’t gone far at all. The skinny one, the one with the glove, had it in his hand and even he was smiling as he held onto it and watched him run.

Isaac crossed the edge of the rectangle that would have been home plate and ran right through it careening into my arms.

He was Dale Murphy, in his faded well-loved shirt. The small cluster of us, killing time in the park, were witness to the gleeful transformation.

My first impulse was to hug these boys. Instead I offered leftover cookies from the church stashed away in the passenger seat of the van. They looked at one another, sheepishly, before they agreed and I suddenly remembered that we were strangers. Their mothers had probably instructed them not to accept food from someone they didn’t know. I was grateful they went against their better judgment and shared our cookies.

We walked to the van, going past the green dinosaur, and he turned to wave goodbye to the boys.

“See ya, Murphy,” the tall one called out.

“See ya,” mumbled the skinny one through his cookie crumbs.

Isaac stared out the window as we drove away, arms bent back supporting his head, and grinned.

“I’m glad I played, Mama.”

“I’m glad you played too, Isaac.”

The streetlamps dimly flickered on to begin their evening shift and from the backseat his tired voice requested, “Mama, can I wear this shirt again tomorrow?”