Sometimes the Game Is the Excuse

ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Alexandria Aces opened their home season Wednesday night with a convincing 16-4 win at Frank Mann Field.

The baseball was excellent, but what stayed with me wasn’t the score. It was everything happening around it.

The kids hanging on the chain-link fence. The families gathered behind the bleachers. Parents chatting while younger siblings ran around the ballpark. The groups congregating near the concession stand and announcer’s booth. It felt less like a sporting event and more like a community gathering that happened to have a baseball game attached.

Before the game, members of Alexandria Little League took part in the festivities, including a ceremonial first pitch. Watching youngsters share the field with Alexandria Aces players was a reminder that every baseball town is built on the same thing: one generation passing the game to the next.

And that’s when I was reminded of something I’ve learned more than once over the years.

Sometimes the game is the excuse.

Anyone who knows me can probably guess I was a complete tomboy growing up. I preferred building forts in the woods to playing with dolls. My friends and I built a treehouse in my backyard. And we had enough freedom to disappear for hours at a time without anybody panicking.

Baseball occupied most of my early summer afternoons and evenings.

Hank Aaron was my hero, and I had a black Hank Aaron glove that I treasured. But like a lot of kids growing up in the early 1970s, I was captivated by the Cincinnati Reds. Johnny Bench and Pete Rose were larger than life, and the Reds seemed to be doing remarkable things every time I turned on the television.

There were no remote controls then, and this was long before cable television arrived in South Florida.

My father occupied his usual spot on the left end of the couch. He wasn’t a baseball fan. But if the Reds were on television, he watched baseball because I wanted to watch the Reds.

Back then, we relied on a rooftop antenna, and if a summer storm rolled through or the wind shifted just enough, the picture would dissolve into static. Dad would head outside and start adjusting the antenna while I remained glued to the television.

“A little more!”

“Too far!”

“Right there!”

I was usually the only one in the house who cared enough to monitor the picture closely, and together we’d eventually coax Johnny Bench and Pete Rose back onto the screen.

Come to think of it, that may be where our lifelong bond over television began. More than fifty years later, we’re still talking about shows we’ve watched, recommending new ones to each other, and discussing old favorites.

My mother occupied the opposite end of the couch in one of her colorful caftans, her feet tucked underneath her, a cigarette in one hand and a Diet Pepsi within reach. She wasn’t paying much attention to baseball. More often than not, she was somewhere in Tudor England with Henry VIII and his wives, wandering through ancient Egypt, or reading one of those grocery-store romances featuring long-haired Fabio types on the cover and impossibly dramatic titles.

Yes, grocery stores used to sell books.

My mother read them all.

Historical novels, romances, biographies, mysteries—if it had words on the page, she was interested. Her lifelong devotion to reading and to the Delray Beach Public Library is probably a story for another day.

There were usually a couple of cats stretched out somewhere on the couch. Back then, cats came and went as they pleased. They slept inside, ate inside, and then disappeared outdoors for mysterious adventures known only to them.

My little sister Julie was around somewhere too, although I was usually too wrapped up in my own adventures to pay much attention to hers.

As for me, I was usually on the floor with Tessa, our German Shepherd. It was easier that way because the television dial was closer whenever Dad wanted me to switch channels during a commercial.

Looking back, I can still see the whole scene: Dad watching baseball he didn’t care much about, Mom reading, the cats sleeping, Tessa stretched across the carpet, and me dreaming about baseball, convinced the major leagues were just around the corner.

Baseball wasn’t just something I watched. I played it too.

My best friend was Shawn. He lived three houses down from us, and his father, Bruce, coached the Arnst Service Center team in Delray Beach Kids Minor League Baseball. Arnst was a local auto repair shop, and like most teams back then, we were named after our sponsors.

The team was all boys. Except me. Bruce gave me a chance, and before long, I was playing first base and loving every minute of it.

I could catch anything.

One day at practice, Bruce decided to see what would happen if he put me behind the plate. He suited me up in catcher’s gear and parked me behind home plate. I loved it immediately.

Every pitch seemed to find my glove. I was snagging balls, firing them back to the pitcher, and throwing down to second base. To my young mind, I was a Venus flytrap. If a baseball came near me, it wasn’t getting away. By the end of practice, Bruce had apparently seen enough.

I came home absolutely glowing. “I’m going to be the new catcher!”

I can still hear my father’s response more than fifty years later.

“Oh no, you’re not.”

What followed may have been the biggest argument of my childhood. My father launched into a detailed explanation about the considerable amount of money being spent he and my mom were spending on my braces and how he wasn’t about to have a baseball destroy the investment.

At seven or eight years old, I couldn’t understand what one thing had to do with the other. I wasn’t thinking about orthodontia. I was thinking about the fact that I could catch baseballs better than almost anybody on the team.

Today, at sixty, I can finally admit he probably had a point.

At the time, however, I considered it one of the great injustices of modern civilization.

Then came Little League.

In Palm Beach County in 1977, girls didn’t play Little League. At least that was the prevailing opinion.

My father wasn’t interested in prevailing opinions.

The day of tryouts, I remember him stuffing my hair up under a baseball cap and calling me M.J. for what felt like the first time in my life. I had no idea what was going on.

What I didn’t know was that he had signed me up as M.J. Wadland. He simply didn’t want anyone deciding whether I could play before they saw me throw, catch, and hit. So I showed up as M.J.

I fielded ground balls, hit in batting practice, threw from the outfield, and apparently made a pretty good impression, because I was picked by the Fire Department team, widely considered the best in the league.

I was thrilled. The coach was too—at least until my father walked over and delivered the news.

“You do realize M.J. is Mary Jean,” he told him. “You just picked my daughter, and she plans to play.”

Things got considerably more complicated after that.

This was only a few years after Title IX became law, and while opportunities for girls were expanding, many people still resisted the change.

My father was prepared to fight. I remember discussions about lawyers and courts and whether the league could legally keep me off the team. Eventually, I was allowed to play. I even got a real stitched uniform.

To a kid, it felt like making the major leagues.

But sometimes winning the battle doesn’t mean you win the war.

I think I only played a game or two. I was there for the whole season, but I don’t remember anything fun or good. The coach made the experience miserable for me, and a child who had spent years dreaming about baseball suddenly didn’t want to play baseball anymore.

Thankfully, golf was already finding its way into my life, and eventually it became my passion.

But I never stopped loving baseball.

And that’s why seeing the Alexandria Aces return every summer makes me smile.

Years from now, most of those children hanging on the fences and running around behind the bleachers won’t remember that the Aces won 16-4 on opening night. They’ll remember chasing friends around the ballpark, pestering their parents for another hot dog, staying out later than usual on a summer evening, and feeling like summer might last forever.

That’s the magic of hometown baseball.

And sometimes the game is the excuse.

[Publisher’s P.S. Go see your hometown Alexandria Aces during June and July.  Take the kids.  Adults are $7.00 and kids are $3.00  To see the schedule, visit Alexandria Aces Schedule – 2026 Baseball Season]