Unlimited

….9 years ago Connor Farquhar ran to first base on an unintentional bunt single–his first hit in little league in his first game, one that featured 47 walks, 111 passed balls in 3 innings spanning 123 minutes of yawns and parents asking each other, “seriously, are there any outs yet”? This was one of those games where the ump, my dad, used such a liberal strike zone that you basically needed stilts to reach some of those high strikes. Bridget perched herself in center field and complained about the ump until she realized it was her own father in law, at which time she probably complained even more. “Oh come on Papa, that was right there.”  It took Connor maybe 14 seconds to make it to first for his moment, not exactly record time but for the 9 year old and his parents it was Jessie Owens fast as they willed him to the bag. They don’t measure time like a lot of us. They measure it in how much dirt Connor kicked up running to first and how many times his glasses bobbled off his nose. They measure it in how when he got there he immediately found me on third base and saw the steal sign and then took off on the next pitch, fearless. Sure, the odds of the catcher throwing him out were 7 billion to 1, but Connor didn’t know that. Here’s the kid who’s been told for 9 years he doesn’t have the ability, that he has “limitations,” “challenges” – but I don’t really agree. Sure, he may need to swing the bat before the pitcher even winds up just to catch up to it and he may not run so fast but his brain is running laps around a lot of kids, and he used whatever force he could muster to make his way around those bases. I think back to that game when we were down 11 runs after 3 innings and the relatively painful moments when the ball would trickle beneath the catcher’s glove and roll to the backstop with 2 kids on base. The catcher, weighed down by the gear, would fall over trying to get himself up, would adjust his knee pad and itch his behind and with the mask covering his eyes start poking around for the ball. I think of that and I realize like a lot of us that for all those lost moments and passed balls there’s one kid who probably only thinks of last night’s game as a win. This week, Connor, now 18, gets ready to graduate high school. Once labeled as that kid on the spectrum and with epilepsy--and the kid who “shouldn’t really be on the team”--Connor was a 3-season student athlete in high school this year, a runner, and is headed to Amherst in the fall. So much for limitations.