Play Ball, Baby Doll

There have been a lot of baby dolls roaming around the house this July. While my girls have spent part of their summer dancing through the sprinkler, riding the ocean waves and swimming with friends at the pool, another part of their summer has been spent changing diapers and pushing carriages. One plays with an American Girl doll, while the other has a life-size infant doll, with frighteningly real facial features.

Daddy’s not much for dolls. I watch them, and feign interest when they tell me how “Amanda needed a nap,” or “Abby wants to go for a walk around the house,” but really I don’t like baby dolls much. Every parent has a terrifying fear of the child walking up to them at age 16 with the words, “I’m pregnant.” So the sight of my daughters practicing parenting is not exactly a dream scenario.

Of course, girls aren’t the only ones interested in pint-sized versions of themselves. From Muppet Babies to Cabbage Patch Kids, boys and girls alike have been drawn to reenact their own childhoods by caring for and watching fictional babies. As I sat in a bookstore the other day, I even came across a new comic book titled “Hulk-Sized Mini-Hulks.” I was stunned – at the content, the repetitive nature of the title and the spot-on proper use of hyphens. The comic book involved the exploits of three toddler Hulks – one green, one blue, one red. Every story was one page long, and every tale was easy for kids to follow. Hulk-Sized Mini-Hulks. At a store near you.

So maybe I was just one of those kids who never felt the need to tickle little Elmo or cuddle a baby doll. But I can recall a thing or two about using toys to while away a summer’s day. In the case of my brother and me, the object of our focus was Star Wars figures. The original three Star Wars films were a mutual passion of ours, not to mention most of the boys in America, during the late 1970s and early ’80s. Sometimes, Eric and I would re-create Star Wars scenes or craft new ones of our own.

But during the summer, with baseball fresh on our minds, we’d put these figures to work playing ball. With the legs of one of the figures, we’d draw the shape of a baseball diamond on the brown shag carpet in our living room. Then we’d divide the Star Wars figures into two teams, and we’d sit the figures down in the nine positions found on a baseball diamond. Eric would then grab one of the cannonballs that came with the Ewok figures from Return of the Jedi, and we’d use that as a baseball. One of us would toss the cannonball toward home plate, and the other would sit behind the plate holding a Star Wars figure’s head. As the pitch came in, we’d whip the legs of the batting figure forward, and the cannonball would fly.

What next, you might ask? Well, if the cannonball struck one of the position players, it was recorded as an out. If it landed untouched, it was a base hit or, in the case of a ball that fell beyond the outfield wall, a home run. My mother shook her head at this sight, and walked away. But we plowed on, and even kept statistics. Somehow, a little Ewok named Wicket W. Warrick led the league in home runs. He was a tiny, bear-like thing, and I think Eric liked him so much that he tried harder to hit home runs with Wicket at the plate. The toothy Gamorrean guards (protectors of Jabba the Hut) were a close second in the home-run race. Their girth played a role in their ability to launch one out of the “park,” not unlike Greg “Bull” Luzinski, who was finishing his career with the White Sox at that time.

That was a long time ago. I don’t play Star Wars baseball anymore. As I watch two little ones scamper about the house, I have yet to see them hold any home-run derbies with Amanda and Abby. They’ve been a lot more low-key than Eric and I were in our day. But hey, if Daddy ever feels the urge, he could try and draw up a diamond on the Pottery Barn carpet. We could roll up one of the doll’s socks for a ball, and make a little bat out of cardboard. The girls could even learn scorekeeping while we play.

But then, when the bases are loaded and Daddy’s really getting into this, someone’s going to need a diaper change. And off the girls will go, into their creative and nurturing worlds. I’ll clean up the mess, then vacuum the carpet so my wife doesn’t see any evidence when she gets home.

And I’ll go back to age 40, with just a little more affection in my heart for Amanda and Abby. Hey, the kid could hit; I’ll give her that.

Fantasy Farmers

For 30 minutes each day during the baseball season, I sit in front of a computer and completely lose myself in a world of make-believe. I set my lineups, add and drop players, make trade offers. I read up on baseball-player news, and I strategize. All of this, of course, involves an imaginary, fantasy-baseball team that exists solely on the Internet. The players are real, of course, but they don’t really play for me. I’m trying to craft a team that will perform better than the teams run by a dozen other grown adults, who are also giving a half-hour of their life to this child’s play.

When I do this, I experience an odd mixture of glee and guilt. I’m excited because this is genuinely fun for me, as it is for the many millions of fans worldwide who are quickly turning fantasy sports into the real sports pastime. And yet, I also feel some pronounced guilt, since there are obviously a billion more productive things I could be doing with my life during that half-hour. Sure, we all need some time to decompress, and many of us do so on-line. But I could be on freerice.com, or reading important news stories, or e-mailing a friend.

The strongest guilt, though, has always come from the other adult who lives in this household. My wife has perfected the look – head cocked to the side, eyebrows pursed, a half-smile on her lips. “What are you doing?” she asks while I click and type furiously over my cereal bowl. “Didn’t we say we were going to church together this morning?”

“Um-hum,” I mumble. “Just give me a second, and I’ll be right there.”

Now the arms are folded in front of her, and she’s giving me the nod. “Sure,” she says. “Whatever you say.”

We get to church late, and now I’m really feeling guilty. She doesn’t say a word, making it even worse.

So this is how it’s gone for five years. Every winter I tell her that I’m going to quit the fantasy baseball scene next year, and she assures me that I won’t. March comes, and she’s right. It all begins again, and that odd mixture of feelings comes back to me while I peer at my lineup over that cereal bowl.

But no more. Next year, without question, will be different. I say this not because I plan to cease playing fantasy baseball. Quite the opposite. What I’m saying is that I’ve finally been relieved of the marital guilt.

The reason is simple: My wife raises fantasy livestock. She’s planting make-believe sunflowers. She’s up to level 25.

We’ve had some odd crazes in the history of American pop culture, but FarmVille is definitely up there among the best of them. According to a New York Times article a few weeks ago, more than 62 million people have signed up to play this Facebook application, which allows its players to tend to a virtual farm all their own. Zynga, the company that created FarmVille, told the Times that 22 million people log into their FarmVille account at least once a day.

When I check my Facebook page, I see these bulky animal and crop drawings, with messages stating that friends of mine are looking for lost cows, or have found wild turkeys, or just discovered mystery eggs, or simply want to say “Thank You” to all their FarmVille friends. It is agricultural madness. It is Atari meets Facebook meets Amish Country.

We should have seen it coming, of course. Many of the adults who are playing this game grew up with such odd passions as Cabbage Patch Kids, Q*bert and the Smurfs. We know that strange fads make life more fun. We’ve kept our Rubik’s Cubes and our Tickle Me Elmo’s, thank you, and we’re on the lookout for the next strangely obsessive thing.

It would be fine if only Amy checked her farm once a day. I would be totally cool with that. However, it’s become a challenge just to talk with her once the girls are asleep. Really, how could you bother to converse with your husband when there are blueberries to harvest, and animals to feed, and hay bales to arrange in the design of a Christmas tree?

You could say that this is karma, and that I’m getting what I deserve after all those hours of fantasy baseball. You’d be right, of course, but I see it differently. I envision a conversation this April, when I’m on the computer one Saturday, and she gives me that look again.

“Honey, are you checking your fantasy baseball?” she’ll ask.

“Yup,” I’ll say.

“Can you get off the computer? We’ve got things to do.”

“Nope.”

“Are you serious? You’re really going to play that all day?”

“As long as I want to.”

“Come on – let’s get a move on.”

“Sorry, babe,” I’ll say. “But you buy fantasy pigs in your spare time. You harvest fantasy corn. You earn fantasy money when your fantasy chickens lay fantasy eggs. You inform your friends that fantasy ugly ducklings have shown up on your fantasy farm.

“So if you don’t mind, I’m going to take just a few more minutes with my little fantasy baseball, where at least the players are real.”

She’ll stare at me for a minute. “Are you done?” she’ll ask.

“I am,” I’ll say, smiling to myself. Patting myself on the back. Little fist-pump beneath the desk.

She’ll continue: “Let’s go.”

I’ll lower my head, and click hibernate. “OK,” I’ll mumble.

The guilt again. Damn farmers.