If you have kids who play sports you'll get this song - but lots of people who don't also see it as a "song about life". This is Dean Verger's favourite, for example.
It was written after a Little League baseball tournament. While I was sitting in the crowd at the Ottawa folk festival, I suddenly got an idea for a chorus - but I knew it would go away if I didn't write it down, so I ran backstage and begged a pencil from an organizer, and wrote the chorus on a festival program.
Then, ten minutes later, I got the first verse (clearly I wasn't paying attention to the performers!) and back I went to borrow the pencil again. After three trips I had most of the song and a resolution to bring my own pencils wherever I went.
It opens the CD, "the Future, whatever that means", appropriately I think, since a lot of it is about courage. It takes something to stand in the batter's box while a not-very-accurate pitcher throws a hardball in your general direction. And it takes something to be called out gracefully when you know it wasn't a strike. That's life; that's baseball.
Here's an excerpt from the CD.
And, finally, here's the music - just the lyrics and tune plus the chords. I''ve got it down to two pages so you can play it without page turns.