'Before the Game' by Melissa Flores Anderson

Every morning, I watch the sunrise. It shifts by degrees as the seasons change. Sometimes it is in front of me and rises above the looming pine trees, sometimes behind me over the dry creek bed I can barely glimpse through the brush. Now is my time to enjoy the sounds of songbirds perched above me in the early morning hours, the dew on the grass, a soft breeze before the heat emerges. Someone passes on the concrete path behind me in running clothes, and feathered wings flap away. Unlike the birds, the people out at dawn ignore my diamond and dugouts. 

Later, cars fill the parking lot, children in blue and green jerseys with ball caps run across the smooth dirt. They smile and laugh, or cry if a ball escapes their leather gloves to land and roll across my grass outfield. A foul ball hits my chain-link fence and I flinch. The boy on deck, a small boy with brown hair and eyes and the word Jack across the back of his jersey, puts a small hand against the metal of my fence and says, “That must have hurt.” A woman waves at him from my bleachers, surrounded by families of the pint-sized players. People eat popcorn, dropping kernels and crumbs under the metal seats. In the morning, the birds will return to pick up the scraps and enjoy the sunrise with me again.