Dean playing in the 2005 Senior Baseball State Tournament Semi-Final game.
Carter mastered Dean’s swing at a very young age.
Batboy Carter cheering on his dad at the state tournament.
Carter and Dean in the Hanska Bullheads 2005 State Championship team photo.
Carter, a senior on the Winona State University Baseball squad.
A couple of weeks ago, the attendance at a doubleheader in Mankato between Winona State and MSU got a boost from an enthusiastic band of fans behind the first base dugout. A cheering section was there to root for the Warriors, with special attention to the left fielder.
Some friends of the Brinkman family all had a similar idea: watch baseball and cheer on Carter Brinkman at a ball field a short drive from Sleepy Eye. This is Carter’s last season of a good college career. It is a season different from the others in one way. Heretofore, Carter’s father Dean never missed any of his games. That was true from rookie ball up to college spring trips to Florida.
It was a good day for ball, one of the first in a wretched spring. The games were important in the Northern Sun Conference. Both games were close, each team winning one. The baseball at this level is enjoyable to watch. All the players are gifted, near the peak of their skills. They make a difficult game look easy.
I admit I spent more time visiting with the folks there who had connections to Carter than focused on the game. Watching baseball lends itself to conversation by its nature. Our group’s attention turned toward the field whenever Carter was at bat, or a ball was hit to left.
More than one comment was made about the similarity of Carter the ballplayer to Dean the ballplayer. The same long strides on the field, the same textbook swing and follow-through were there for those of us old enough to have seen both play.
Later I was thinking about watching Carter play baseball and remembering Dean play baseball. Of course, they share a body type. That’s genetics. But an approach to the game, the manner they each moved about on the field, a comparable way of interacting with others: those are things that are taught.
Dean spent many hours teaching the game of baseball to Carter. It is a game of unique skills that aren’t just a matter of athleticism. Going the other way on an outside fastball, transitioning the ball from glove to hand after backhanding a grounder, taking the turn at a first base on a ball to the outfield are things that better players do better. Somebody teaches those things.
Parents teach a lot of things. It is what you do when you have children. We teach them to dress, we teach them how to brush their teeth, we teach them how to hold a fork when they are young. We keep teaching as they get older, more complex matters: how to fish, how to cook, how to drive a car.
In this glorious explosion of activity in nature that comes this time of year, we’re watching the birds and other wildlife return and spring to action. All God’s creatures are busy. Year-old swallows will build their mud nests, hatch their young, feed them, and send them out in the next months. They know how to do that.
But how?
I suppose in a way, their parents “teach” them. But not in a way we understand. The birds and the bees don’t have to be told about the birds and the bees. We write that off as instinct. But it is remarkable if we think about it. Young swallows, turtles, crickets and geese know what to do. Nature works to generate replacements for all of them. It will work for thousands of years and generations.
Well, except when we humans get in the way by destroying habitat. Instinct doesn’t know what to do when the prairie is gone. Most of the birds and bugs that were here are gone, as is the plant life that supported them. A small number of species adapt, but most won’t. Nature is a miracle, but sometimes it can’t perform miracles.
Back to the human species. In our teaching, we want our children to do well in the world. But parents aren’t just about transferring a set of skills. We want to pass things like values to our children. Right and wrong are more nuanced than how to bait a hook. And it matters less what we say than what we do.
If we tell our children to be kind and respectful to others, but then snap at our spouse or make fun of the odd neighbor down the street, guess which lesson is more powerful?
Life is a classroom. As we eat with our kids, as we drive with them, as we walk with them, we are teaching, even in those moments we don’t intend to.
This past January came news of David Crosby’s death. Being in the middle of dark winter, I spent time with his music one evening. In my growing-up years, David was part of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Down on a basement shelf I have several of their albums and 45’s. Those are orphaned right now in that we don’t have a functioning turntable.
So, I turned to YouTube to listen to my records. I kept coming back to the song, “Teach Your Children.” Crosby’s bandmate Graham Nash wrote that, but Crosby sang on the 1970 recording. The lyrics have roots in the Sixties anti-war movement and have some complex lines. But the gentle melody that hops along like a small child makes it easy to listen to multiple times. I did that.
The song bridges from being to the parent to being to the child. “Teach your children well'” becomes “Teach you parents well.” Each part ends with this admonition:
Don’t you ever ask them, “Why?”
If they told you, you would cry.
So just look at them and sigh,
And know they love you.
It is interesting to live long enough where I know people who are grown up now and I know, or knew, their parents. Children aren’t duplicates of their parents, but you can see reflections. As Carter ran down the first base line, I could see a bit of Dean’s gait. It is a joy to have seen both play this game I love.