I wanted to dive in and grab the ball and take a shot myself, but the kid was maybe 12 and I am 64.
As the ball bounced back to him across the concrete the boy shivered his arms and shoulders, loosening them as he'd seen the pros do on the telly. Like them, he bounced the ball one two three times and shot again, then noticed I was watching. I walked on.
A ball is a sphere, a globe, the miracle shape, the shape with no sides or corners or irregularities. The wonder and the virtue of it is it rolls and bounces predictably, which makes for games of skill.
A second kid was playing football all alone on a patch of scabby grass, practising dribbling, being Ronaldo, keeping the ball at toe, turning to shoot at the wall, the goal of dreams, then trotting off to fetch the rebound and start again.
Football is the most instinctive ball game, and the simplest. Sweaters and stones are goalposts and wherever you are is a pitch. All you need is a ball, of any size and almost any material.
The first football was a pig's bladder inflated and tied off. The ones we had at school were not much advanced on this. The bladder now was rubber, encased in heavy leather. To head such a ball took a courage I never had. I remember watching football on the television and wondering at the bright synthetic lightness of the ball they used.
A new cricket ball is an artefact of beauty, a thing to be cradled and felt, its leather polished to a lustre, the maker's name stamped in gold, the stitching proud and
lacquered.
A hundred overs later the thing is battered, scuffed and softened, the seam worn flat, the gold and lacquer gone, the crimson dulled to tan, but it is still a thing to nestle in the palm and feel the good of. Just like the kid with the football scoring goals, I used to bowl a cricket ball for hours alone in Adastra Park, bowling at crude stumps painted on the wall of the grounds man's brick-built shed. I'd bowl till I ached.
Eventually a cricket ball would fall apart. Beneath the leather quarters was a layer of coarse brown twine wound very tight. And inside that an inner ball of cork that felt like treasure exposed, the seed of the fruit, a novelty to be pocketed.
A golf ball's guts were weird. Inside the plastic shell lay a mass of tight wound rubber bands all fizzing with latent energy and bursting to break out. And inside them, as I recall, a sac of sorts, a malleable inner ball, that held a pus-like fluid. Why, I never knew.
The third kid was playing with the most ubiquitous ball of all. He was hitting a tennis ball against, and occasionally managing a rally with, a wall.
I never got anywhere with tennis but tennis balls are a joy. They fit a hand exactly. They're hard enough to bounce but soft enough not to hurt. They're cheap but durable. A tennis ball can lose its hairy skin in its entirety and still be good for play. They float.
They're perfect for a dog to fetch. (A friend's wee dog has worn his teeth to nubs from tennis-ball retrieving, mauling, chewing.)
For years at school I carried one. When bored in class, I'd reach into my jacket pocket and let its tactile loveliness beguile my hand and mind.
Play on, you kids, and balls to Sunday afternoon.
