{"id":102329,"date":"2021-06-27T07:21:47","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T11:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=102329"},"modified":"2021-06-27T07:29:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T11:29:32","slug":"self-portrait-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/self-portrait-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><u>Baseball: The Surrogate Father<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Baseball is a surrogate father.<\/p>\n<p>Every piece of advice<\/p>\n<p>which I expound to my children &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>that goes in one ear and out the other \u2013<\/p>\n<p>gets reinforced<\/p>\n<p>every Saturday<\/p>\n<p>for three hours<\/p>\n<p>on the baseball diamond<\/p>\n<p>after the umpire calls,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlay ball!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As I stand at the fence<\/p>\n<p>and shovel peanuts into my mouth,<\/p>\n<p>I can hear Terrance Mann whisper,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe movie got it wrong, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I nod my head in agreement and reply to no one,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t need to build it, kids will play anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Together we blurt out,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the parents will drive them! Fools!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After the fat lady finally sings,<\/p>\n<p>we stop at 7-Eleven for a Slurpie<\/p>\n<p>before making our way home.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After replaying the game<\/p>\n<p>for mom,<\/p>\n<p>I have a date<\/p>\n<p>washing the kid\u2019s uniforms<\/p>\n<p>knowing I\u2019m never, ever<\/p>\n<p>getting those grass stains<\/p>\n<p>out of the knees.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I just hope my children<\/p>\n<p>remember<\/p>\n<p>both<\/p>\n<p>the joy and frustration<\/p>\n<p>this game has taught them<\/p>\n<p>about life<\/p>\n<p>as they grow old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baseball: The Surrogate Father &nbsp; Baseball is a surrogate father. Every piece of advice which I expound to my children &#8211; that goes in one ear and out the other \u2013 gets reinforced every Saturday for three hours on the baseball diamond after the umpire&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1448,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102395,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102329\/revisions\/102395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}