By Anthony L. Gargano

I swear the boy with the freckles and the sad eyes is a plant, a parcel from my future I can only pray, purposely plopped next to me in the second row behind the home dugout by a benevolent seamhead in baseball heaven. The boy looks to be about seven, and he clings to his father seated to the right, rapping his shoulder with the hand that's tucked inside a giant foam finger every time the team makes an out. His other hand – the left one – locks firmly into a baseball glove. His name is written in blue ink below the pocket, just above the heel.

It's a Rawlings, he says evenly when I make a fuss.

His R sounds like a W so it comes out, "Wall-wings."

A little later, he tells me how much he likes the Phillies shortstop, "Jimmy Wollins," but that Chase Utley is his favorite-favorite player. Direct from central casting, the boy wears a red Phillies t-shirt and a red Phillies baseball cap that's slightly askew, and right now his lips are red from eating a cherry Italian ice. He watches the game intently, and doesn't smile. In fact, as the innings pass, the more nervous he becomes.

The vibe isn't good. In fact, it's grim. The Phillies can't touch the Giants' Jonathan Sanchez. They have one hit through seven innings and San Francisco leads 5-0. It feels like one of those nights for the home team at the ballyard. The fans can't be too upset, though, because the Phillies have enjoyed a spectacular stretch. They're back nipping at the first-place Braves as August wanes, and they will likely be the favorite in the National League again come this fall. But the boy begins to sag as resignation sets in. Once piercing with each pitch, his eyes turn sad and tumble.

I know why. His father had told me earlier that this was the boy's third-ever game and the Phillies had lost the previous two. So the boy didn't have to say why he watched with so much angst and why he slumped now in his seat.

Oh, no, there isn't some sort of cosmic relationship here? Please, please, please, he surely thought, don't let my presence curse my team.

And isn't that just the most darling thing? That to the boy with the freckles and the sad eyes, the entire world has been stuffed into this ballpark, this continent first? That nothing exists beyond the perimeter of Citizen's Bank Park on this dreamy late summer night, except maybe a tree-lined path that leads to the boy's house and up the stairs to his baseball-themed bedroom? Shouldn't every child be that lucky?

I look to my left. A tuft of black curls peek from inside my wife Tamara's arms. And just then, they start to move. A baby's bottle goes flying, and this ball of hair begins to rise, using Tamara's retro Phillies t-shirt to pull himself up into a standing position, nearly spilling her chest. Our little Anthony, our only child, whom recently turned nine months old, I swear, wanted to see last ups for the club.

I'd like to believe that's why he turned directly toward the batter's box with that curious tilt of the head and why those big eyes widened further. I'd like to believe he's already something of a baseball fan. I am not ashamed to say, he and I got into the habit of watching the MLB Network every late afternoon during his first spring on this earth. That was notoriously his tizzer time, and I think he liked 30 teams in 30 days. Or maybe Hazel Mae. Either way, he sat in his Bumbo Chair and soon drifted off to sleep.

The season underway, he soon outgrew the chair that suctioned him in and he sat upright on his own on the blanket we spread out in the living room. We'd sneak in a few innings before bedtime, before his mother read him the story of a real bat, Stella Luna, a baby fruit bat who gets separated from her mother after a tussle with an owl and goes to live with a group of birds before being reunited again.

While we had to postpone this night a few times because of the oppressive heat and humidity that has seared the eastern seaboard this summer, I've been looking forward to it since well before Little Anthony was born. Since probably shortly after my mother tracked down a foul ball at the old Veterans Stadium. A brickless, colorless, impersonal multipurpose monolith, born unto a time in America when modernism was viewed as being first and foremost functional, forsaking all style and taste, given the spreading rash of silver Christmas trees and Astroturf, the Vet is now a parking lot used for games at this charming ballpark and the new football stadium down the block.

And while my mother, sadly, passed away before she could meet Little Anthony, I only hope to provide him some of the wonderful memories she did me. She took me to many games. I can still see her, a slight thing, fiercely yank the baseball away from two men. The Cubs' Steve Ontiveros hit it. That would be the journeyman infielder Steve Ontiveros, who played from 1973 to 1980 in the bigs and then went to Japan, as opposed to the pitcher Steve Ontiveros.

I still have the ball. I added some others to my collection over the years. I covered baseball in Chicago and New York as a sportswriter, and a foul ball once smashed my laptop computer in the press box at Dodger Stadium. I left my seat for a moment to snare a Dodger Dog, one of the great ballpark treats, and the ball nearly decapitated my screen. My first visit to Chavez Ravine, I couldn't believe the stunning beauty and then I met Vin Scully. And on the same day big Lou Piniella left the game after a lifetime to be with his sick mother in Florida, the legendary broadcaster announced he will return for one more season and for that I am grateful.

I cherish his words, especially the ones he uttered during a press conference in which he was noticeably uncomfortable talking about himself.

"The game still produces goosebumps every time there's a good play," said the selfless Scully. "Like the other night when the kid at second threw the ball behind his back to first, I had goosebumps like it was the first game I've ever seen. On the way home, I thought, holy mackerel, it's deep inside of me, this love for the game."

I know this all may sound foolish since Little Anthony will have no recollection of this night. But I'm shooting for osmosis. Selfishly, I wish him the same unbridled joy I had when my father surprised me with a pair for Sunday. I wish him to be a baseball fan just like the boy with the freckles and the sad eyes. The way my niece Domenica and her father, my best friend, are baseball fans. She couldn't wait to tell me how obnoxious the Red Sox fans can be after attending a Sunday interleague game, and wondered if she'd ever get the chance to act that way if the Phillies won it all.

They did in 2008, and she did in Pittsburgh on a road trip, though she could truly never be obnoxious. And the following World Series in 2009, the one the Phillies lost to the Yankees, I saw a man I admire, Gary Smith, the gifted writer for Sports Illustrated, sit in a downpour next to his boy, a college boy, in the stands. I could see them from the back, huddling under a plastic slicker shoulder to shoulder as the October rain whipped them.

There was a time not long ago when I truly worried about the game. I thought it was in peril, and not because of labor strife or PEDs or anything like that. I wondered if the world was simply becoming too overstimulated for it. I'm ridiculous that way. I care deeply for the games, because of the joy they've provided me. I didn't need to worry about football, because we've carved out the space in our culture, and basketball is safe because the world took to it. Baseball, I feared might ultimately be paced away, and someday in perhaps Little Anthony's lifetime, the game would just wither and die.

Thankfully, it's thriving again, particularly here in Philadelphia, where on this night the Phillies enjoyed their 100^th consecutive sellout. But it's safe all over now, thanks to a new generation with foam fingers and "Wall-wings."

I'm proud to say that Little Anthony, after turning nine months on August 11, made it through all nine innings in his first baseball game. He didn't cry, not once. Not even when the giant, furry green Phillie Phanatic, the greatest mascot in sports, cradled him in its arms and danced with him on top of the Phillies dugout. Without prodding, he stayed awake through the team's rally that fell short on this night.

Finally, in the car and out of traffic, he succumbed to sleep. My wife Tamara and I marveled over him on the ride home.

"Just wait until he gets older," she said.

I hope.

For now, I will never forget a night he will never remember.