Forward | The Dreamweaver

It was my first day as a member of a minor league baseball team.

Not expecting to play, I was nervously surprised when the manager walked over to me while I was sitting on the bench looking over statistics on a tablet and told me to grab my glove and play first base.

Never having played first base---nor having a first baseman's glove---I apprehensively took the field.

I was a bit taken aback noticing how overgrown the infield was as there was tall grass, stalks and weeds everywhere.

I was also surprised to see that the new, larger regulation-size bases were more elongated and rectangular than I'd imagined they'd be, which I thought was very peculiar.

The first batter came up to the plate and hit the first ball pitched to the shortstop who was playing deep, nearly in left field. He scooped up the ball and threw it to me, but the throw was very high and I wasn't quite sure if I should make an effort to catch it or not. I ended up reaching out my bare hand as to not be seen as not having made an effort to catch the ball.

The next batter came up to the plate and hit a foul ball over my head, which I tried to catch but couldn't.

Becoming more and more anxious, the next batter---a lefty---came to the plate and hit his first pitch directly at me, which I fumbled and let roll out to right field.

Convinced I wasn't adept enough to play first base, I signalled to the bench coach who called time out and ran over to me. I told him I thought I strained my pectoral muscle reaching for the last hit and thought I wouldn't be able to continue. He agreed and told me to head for the bench.

Rather than going to the bench as I had been instructed, I decided to go back to the hotel where I noticed an exhibition going on in the lobby.

There were a number of kiosks set up, each containing a different kind of art exhibit.

Just then, I noticed one of the kiosks was an exhibit of old newspapers from around the world and one in particular, the Jewish Daily Forward, a Yiddish-language paper founded in 1897, had a historical display on a central pedestal in the kiosk and caught my eye.

There was a young boy sitting at a table with his father who pointed at me seeing how I was still wearing my uniform.

I walked over to the boy with the intention of giving him an autographed baseball.

I greeted the boy and asked him what languages he spoke.

The father, speaking for his son, told me the boy's first language was Spanish but he was learning English in kindergarten.

Then, to the surprise of the young boy and his father, I began speaking Spanish to the boy.

I asked him if he had ever heard of a language called Yiddish, which he had not.

The boy's father then told his son that Yiddish was an old language spoken by the Jews of eastern Europe hundreds of years ago.

I told the boy to follow me into the kiosk and I showed him and his father copies of the Forward that were on the table in the exhibit. I went on to tell them that my great-grandfather spoke Yiddish and read the Forward everyday until the day he died.

After, the boy's father told me that they had come to watch some spring training games and that they lived in Cuba. The man insisted that I come to visit him and his son and that I would be a welcomed guest in their home.

As I said goodbye to the boy and his father, the man reiterated his kind invitation and said he would leave his contact details, a plane ticket and the keys to his house for me at reception.

Then I woke up.