Someone shared on a PM that at his son's school a teammate had recently been baptized on the college ballfield.
It seems to me that a baptism on a baseball field is utterly appropriate. God loves baseball, after all, as is inerrantly obvious in Chapter 1, Verse 1, of the book of Genesis: "In the big inning...."
Uh oh, I feel a free association fugue coming on...
Future scattering sites I'm considering: T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, a bowling alley in Schenectady and, maybe, where I played Club Nine for the first time: the ball field at the International School of Brussels.
I think in the big ballparks, outfield seats right at the wall would attract the least attention but still provide the most opportunity for ash drama, that well-known euphemism for scattering cremains, come what may. (BTW, until 5 minutes ago, I didn't know "cremains" was a word but now that I do, it makes so much sense, and I will use it every chance I get.)
Since you asked, the most alarming, yet entertaining, Dad-scattering (so far) occurred on August 8, 2013, at Cooperstown Dreams Park three years after he died. It was actually the very first time I scattered Dad anywhere. As I remember it, my middle son's tournament had ended the night before which was good because that morning it was raining. Most other teams had already left for their respective homes and the next group of campers hadn't yet arrived. The park was still, quiet, that kind of quiet that settles in after a mass of humanity has abandoned some kind of celebration, like a small town Main Street, in the dusk after some annual parade. Maybe the day after Woodstock was like this. I don't know, but you get the idea . My players were clearing out our barracks, so I took the quart-size freezer-weight ziplock bag filled with my dad's cremains (I got to use it in a sentence!) out of the secret pocket in my suitcase and escaped to the gently sloping, grassy hillside above Fields 11-14.
Because of the rain, which was falling harder and harder, no one else was there. Clouds were low over the surrounding hills and it actually felt like the end of a day, instead of the beginning of one. I found a spot high on the slope, where I thought my dad would be able to watch the games below, and I opened the bag and looked over both my shoulders to make sure no one was watching. Then I tipped the bag upside down and the ashes, which, as you probably know, are more like ground-up chalky-colored pebbles, started falling to the grass. That's the precise moment a gust of wind--that I estimate to be about the same strength as an F-4 tornado--ripped the bag out of my hands and blew. ashes. everywhere. In my face, on my wet shoes, on my jacket, in my hair. It was as if one of those dye bags that tellers give bank robbers had blown up all over me.
This link, with two of the dudest dudes I know, is a fair approximation of my experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OrGhs2TQDM
And, while the moment had elements of slapstick, it also spoke of deeper, more serious stuff. In my naïveté, I briefly thought Dad might just dissolve into the earth at my feet, but then I realized the obvious: Dad was not simply some fragile powder that would easily disappear. He was bits of hard, durable bone. He was home on that hillside and he is gonna last there longer than my memory will last, longer than my lifetime. Some day, sooner than I wish, I will also come home and join him on that hillside, and some day, I hope long, long, long after that, my sons will come home, too.
But, now, I'm wondering where to share Dad next. I still have some of him left. Maybe Florida this time, where the spring break tournaments are and where I pray the spring breezes will be calm. Thank God for baseball.