I’m on paternity leave, a rare stretch of time that lets me keep a small journal about my daughter, Derek Jr., and the tiny miracles and missteps that fill each hour.
A Morning with Derek
She falls into a near‑three‑hour nap, the kind of quiet that lets me tap out a few sentences before the next cry. In those moments I can actually finish a thought, something that usually gets lost in the swirl of diapers and lullabies.
But the calm is fragile. When she wakes, she becomes inconsolable, and I’m left juggling a handful of toys, a half‑filled bottle, and the growing anxiety that I’m missing something obvious. It isn’t until I finally offer a bottle that she settles, the hunger finally soothed, and she drifts back to sleep, her tiny chest rising in a rhythm that feels like a promise.
Parenting, I’ve learned, is a series of inevitable miscalculations. You can plan every feeding, every bedtime, but the universe has a way of reminding you that mistakes are part of the script. Still, there’s a strange comfort in those errors; they’re the proof that you’re present, that you’re trying.
The Game Unfolds
Later, I turn on a Rangers‑Rockies broadcast, looking for a distraction from the endless loop of lullabies. The game is tight, the innings stretching, when a play erupts that feels ripped from a drama script. A batter slides hard into second, colliding with the shortstop, and the umpire, Alex MacKay, steps in.
The call he makes is immediately overturned after a review, a decision that seems to shift the momentum. Moments later, pitcher Kyle Freeland, who had been cruising, gives up a cascade of runs, the scoreboard swelling as if the earlier reversal had set off a chain reaction.
Watching the aftermath, I’m struck by the parallels: just as a small misread need can turn a calm morning into a scramble, a single call can alter the course of a game. Both realms — fatherhood and baseball — are governed by split‑second decisions, and both reward patience, even when the outcome is uncertain.