Austin Hays takes me back to the days of my glove, arcing tennis balls, and the roof of Dad's shed

Oh, man.
Talk about hitting the rewind button on the ole brain DVR. Wait. I am fiddy afterall. Better make that the rewind button on my noodle's VCR; VHS ftw, baby. I was watching yesterday's Sox-O's tilt and that Austin Hays diving catch in Fenway's shallow right hit me right in the mems. Let me tell you a tale about first baseball gloves, tennis balls, and the rebound capability of Dad's tool shed.
It was the early-ish 80s. Although the isolation of the locale did little to encourage my passion for ball (the only kids around during summer vaca were tryin' weed for the first time, and there was no way I was goin' there; a whoopin' was not something I wanted to entertain should I be caught), somewhere along the way through the summer of 1983 I discovered that I could replicate the big-league diving catch if I could get just the right amount of arc on a lobbed tennis ball directed at the shed in Dad's backyard. Man, my wonky right shoulder that acts up during recent snow shovelling seasons not-enjoyed is testiment to so, SO many tosses at that shed roof.
Sometimes the tennis ball would hit a dead spot on the roof, and I'd get a shit rebound. Sometimes I'd miss the damn roof all together. But, man, when the probabilities were on my side, when wind, tragectory, and velo were on-point as the ball left my hand, when the ball found solid stringers and plywood sheathing beneath the old worn shingles that would eventually be replaced by me in a summer to come (when Dad was reasonably certain that I was old enough that he wouldn't get in trouble with Mum if I was to fall off the roof), said ball sprung up in such a pleasing arc. That's when my hustlin' pre-teen self would be bustin' it hard after the fly.
Sure, the lawn I was throwing myself about on was hardly big-league quality. Come to think of it, it wasn't even municipal park quality with respect to grade or grass. A throw that hit too high on the roof meant a rebounding ball that took me too close to the concrete block retaining wall, meaning scrapes of a scratchy kind, and too close to the giant subterranean ant nest that was always there throughout my entire childhood (Dad said the ants didn't eat much...which wasn't true, as they made their way into our Sugar Crisp one August), leading to bites that burned like the dickens. A throw too low off the roof meant not enough time to make a legit diving challenge. But when everything worked out, man, I was Bell, Barfield, and Moseby; I was Lemon, Herndon, and Gibby; I was Mookie, Dykstra, Dwight Evans and Freddy Lynn. Gawd, I spent hours practicing that throw and leaping dive.
Oh, man.
The memories!
Viva la Baseball!
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