"The Baseball Game"

A Fable by Jennifer Aune

Rabbit, Donkey, and Giraffe were good friends. They lived in the jungle and spent every afternoon looking for fun things to do together. Sometimes they played hide and seek in the dense vegetation of the jungle, and sometimes they went swimming in the cool, clear water of the river. One day as the trio lounged lazily by a large tree trunk, Rabbit suggested that they play baseball. He rambled on and on about how great the sport was and how much fun it would be to start a team. Donkey and Giraffe agreed and they found several other friends who said they would like to play baseball too. A few afternoons later, a large group of animals gathered in a clearing in the middle of the jungle to practice for the first time. Giraffe brought bats and balls for all of the team members.  Everyone was as excited as if it was Christmas morning. Before practice began, Monkey and Bear admitted that they had never played baseball before and did not know the rules of the game. All of the other team members, including Donkey and Giraffe, shyly confessed that they had never even seen a baseball game. They wanted to play because it sounded fun. Rabbit was clearly dismayed by this news. He became very cocky and said obnoxiously, “Well, since I am the only one who knows anything about the game and the rest of you are incompetent, I will have to teach everyone how to play.” Rabbit assured the animals that under his guidance, they would be ready to beat any team in the jungle by their first scheduled game, which was only two weeks away.

The animals were slightly put off by Rabbit’s claim that they were all “incompetent”, but they resolved to practice as hard as possible and to become the best team the jungle had ever seen. During the first practice, Rabbit explained that the batter was supposed to stand at home plate, place the ball on the ground in front of them, and hit it with their bat. The object of the game was to hit the ball as far as possible. After hitting the ball, the batter was to run to their right, to first base, and stay there until the second batter hit the ball. Then they could run to second base, and so on. Day after day, the team ran the bases and swung their bats in the scorching sun. All the while, Rabbit was shouting “Practice makes perfect! Practice makes perfect!” Although everyone was sick of Rabbit, sick of the heat, and sick of practice, they improved rapidly. Two weeks later, they felt confident that they would defeat the Lions in their first game the following afternoon. Rabbit had already been bragging to everyone that his team was going to have an undefeated season and win the forest championship.

The animals showed up at the field for their first game, proudly displaying their brand new uniforms. They even had numbers sewn on the back of their jerseys! Each team member was a bundle of nerves, and they chattered excitedly about their upcoming triumph. On Rabbit’s orders, they began their warm-up. When the Lions arrived 15 minutes later, they were met with a hilarious spectacle. Laughing hysterically, the captain of the Lions shouted “What is going on here?”

“We’re practicing! What does it look like?” Donkey snapped rudely.

“Yeah!” chimed in Giraffe. “I bet you’re just jealous of our new uniforms. We can’t help it that yours are old and ugly.”

None of the Lions said anything. The other animals took their silence as an indication that they were correct in their accusations. However, all of the Lions continued to chuckle softly as they trotted to the outfield to play catch. Immediately, the other animals noticed that the Lions were not practicing the same way that they were.

Rabbit, laughing like a hyena, screamed “What in the world are you doing? You guys look ridiculous!” The other animals laughed nervously. What were those lions up to? The Lions had large, brown gloves covering their hands. The other animals had no idea what those were for. They had never seen anything like it. Furthermore, instead of rolling the balls along the ground as their team was doing, the Lions were throwing them in the air and catching them in their giant gloves! The Lions’ behavior seemed dangerous to the other animals. What if someone missed the ball and it hit another player?

For fifteen minutes, the other animals watched the Lions incredulously. During batting practice, one of the Lions stood in the middle of the infield and threw the ball at the batter! All of the animals sucked in their breath and waited to see what would happen. This was not the way baseball should be played. Hadn’t anyone told these Lions the rules? Suddenly, the Lion in the batter’s box swung the bat with all his might and smacked the ball in the air. With a loud “crack”, the ball sailed over the infield and the outfield and into the trees on the other side of the fence. The Lions immediately began clapping and congratulating the batter on his “homerun”. The rest of the animals were terrified. What was going on? This was not baseball. Clearly the Lions had no idea what a batter was supposed to do.

The animals gathered around Rabbit, anxiously awaiting an explanation for what the Lions were doing on the field. Holding a book in his hand, the Lions’ coach approached the huddle and asked if he could speak to Rabbit privately. The title of the book was The Complete Rules of the Game of Baseball. The Lion opened the book and pointed to the first page with his huge paw. Rabbit read quickly. His eyes grew wider with each page he turned, and his mouth dropped open. “This can’t be right. I know how to play baseball. I taught my team! We practiced!” he protested.

The rest of the Lions had gathered around by this point, and they all shrugged. The coach spoke up. “Apparently you practiced wrong. I’m sure you’re very good at whatever game you are playing, but it’s not baseball. You’ll have to forfeit. We win!” The Lions cheered as they gathered their equipment and left the field. The rest of the animals could not believe what had just happened. They stood on the field for a long time, devastated. All of their hard work went down the drain.

A few minutes later, Rabbit collected himself and made an announcement. “Team, I want to apologize. I thought I knew how to play baseball, and I was mistaken. But now I really do know the rules, and I’d like to give it another shot. I misspoke when I said ‘practice makes perfect.’ We practiced as hard as we could, but we practiced wrong, so we couldn’t win. Our new motto is going to be ‘perfect practice makes perfect.’ Let’s get started.” The other animals nodded, and they started to play catch the right way.