Chapter 2 → First Catch
Chapter 2 → First Catch
(2011)
It was a quiet Sunday morning in the Wójcik apartment, the kind of morning when even the trams passing outside seemed softer, muffled by the spring air drifting in through slightly cracked windows. The neighborhood trees outside were starting to bud, the last whispers of winter fading into distant memory.
Inside, the floor of the living room was a sprawl of colorful plastic toys, scattered haphazardly like someone had dropped handfuls of candy across the rug. But at the center of that cheerful mess sat Adrian Wójcik, now barely over a year old, holding a bright yellow plastic softball in both hands with all the focus and seriousness his little face could manage.
"Go on then," Marek encouraged, crouched low across from him. "Throw it to Tata."
Adrian blinked his wide brown eyes, then looked at the ball, then at his father. His grip loosened, and the ball plopped gently onto the carpet, rolling crookedly toward Marek.
Marek laughed and clapped his hands together once, loudly. "Good! That's my boy! You threw it! Sort of!"
Elżbieta glanced over from the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, the faintest amused smile tugging at her lips. "You realize," she said dryly, "that you just applauded him for dropping something?"
"It was a throw, Ela," Marek insisted, reaching for the ball. "The first one. That's practically history."
From the corner, Piotr—the same old family friend who'd gifted Adrian the cartoonish plastic baseball—called out, "At this rate, he'll be signed by the Americans before he's five."
Everyone laughed. Everyone except Marek, who caught the ball and rolled it slowly back toward Adrian.
"This one's for real," Marek said softly, crouching down again, his elbows resting on his knees. "Ready, kiddo?"
Adrian squealed happily as the ball rolled against his hands. He slapped at it with enthusiasm, not quite understanding yet what was supposed to happen, but excited that his father was excited.
The morning was full of little rituals like this now—early games that didn't yet make sense, except for the feeling of being together. Plastic bats. Soft foam balls. Stacking blocks shaped like colorful animals. All of it mixed into a messy, noisy blur of young family life.
But then it happened.
A single, perfect moment.
Marek lightly tossed the yellow ball toward Adrian's tiny chest. For the first time, instead of letting it bounce off him or flail his arms wildly, Adrian lifted both hands just at the right second—
—and caught it.
It wobbled. It wasn't graceful. His chubby little arms barely closed around it before it dropped into his lap again.
But it was a catch.
Marek's heart felt like someone had lit a fuse inside his chest. "YES! That's it! You caught it!"
The excitement startled Adrian into a brief moment of shock, and then he broke into a wide, toothless grin, clapping his hands wildly. The ball rolled forgotten across the carpet, but the achievement had already cemented itself in Marek's mind forever.
Elżbieta shook her head from the doorway, smiling now, but softly. She knew what this meant—not just the catch, but what it would become. She could already see the weight Marek was loading into it.
That afternoon, both sets of grandparents arrived, carrying grocery bags, boxes of pastries, and that distinctive combination of bustling Polish warmth and gentle bickering that always filled the apartment during family visits.
Adrian's maternal grandmother, Halina, immediately swept him up into her arms, cooing soft Polish lullabies into his ear. His other grandmother, Anna, plopped herself at the kitchen table, peeling fruit and murmuring about how thin Marek looked.
"Eat more," Anna scolded him. "If you're going to chase this boy around all the time, you'll need meat on your bones."
"Thin?" Marek repeated, scandalized. "I've gained three kilos since the winter!"
Halina laughed, adjusting Adrian on her hip. "And where did those three kilos go? Into your ego?"
Adrian reached toward his grandfather, Wiktor, on his father's side, grabbing at his glasses with quick, clumsy hands. Wiktor chuckled and let the toddler pull at them, exaggerating a shocked expression to make Adrian giggle.
"Strong hands," Wiktor said proudly. "Wójcik hands."
"Big talk for a boy who just caught his first ball this morning," Marek said, his chest puffing up, playful but proud. "The next world champion of Warsaw, right here."
More laughter. More teasing. But beneath it—underneath the family warmth, the bustling noise, the coffee brewing on the stove—there was that sharp thread of hope. Especially from Marek.
After dinner, while the women chatted around the table and Wiktor napped slightly with Adrian asleep on his chest, Marek found himself standing by the window again, looking out over the Warsaw rooftops.
Piotr joined him after a few minutes, slipping a small glass of vodka into Marek's hand. "To your boy," he said simply, raising his own.
Marek smiled and tapped his glass against his friend's. "To Adrian."
They drank in silence for a moment, the old tram clattering by in the street below.
Piotr eventually spoke again, more carefully this time. "You think you'll put him in a proper baseball club when he's older?"
"When," Marek corrected gently. "Not if. When."
Later that evening, with Adrian finally asleep and the family drifting into that late-night tired haze of tea and murmured conversation, Marek sat by himself in the bedroom, holding one of Adrian's soft plastic bats across his lap.
It wasn't heavy. Just hollow plastic, designed for toddlers. But in his hands, it felt like something older, something unfinished. The way a carpenter might hold raw timber before it became something beautiful.
His mind drifted backward, uninvited, to his own childhood. The games in the narrow alleys of Mokotów. The bruises on his shins. The arguments with his father over skipping chores to go throw balls at cracked brick walls until his shoulder ached. And the worst memory—the letter that never came. The missed opportunity.
The scout that had forgotten his name.
Marek clenched his jaw.
Not this time.
He bent forward and carefully leaned the small plastic bat against the leg of the crib. For a long time, he sat there, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. His fingers curled unconsciously into fists.
"I'm not going to be that father," he whispered. "Not going to push too hard. Not going to break him before he's ready."
The words felt heavy, harder to believe than he wanted to admit. He wanted this. Wanted it so badly that it frightened him. For Adrian, yes—but also for himself.
Behind him, the soft sound of the door creaked, and Elżbieta stepped in, barefoot, wearing one of his old oversized T-shirts as pajamas.
"You're still awake?" she asked softly, moving beside him, placing a careful hand on his shoulder.
Marek didn't answer right away. He just stared at the little bat. The future it might carry.
Finally, his voice low: "What if I mess this up?"
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
She knelt beside him, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "I know you," she said. "You won't be your father. You won't be Piotr's father. And Adrian… he's his own person."
Her words hung in the quiet, wrapping around the restless, jagged pieces inside Marek. He wanted to believe it. Maybe part of him did.
But part of him also whispered, I have to do this right. I can't fail him.
Elżbieta tilted her head and looked up at him with tired but sharp eyes. "Let him be a kid first. Let him laugh before you teach him to win."
For a while, the only sounds were the quiet tick of the old kitchen clock and Adrian's soft breathing from the crib.
Finally, Marek nodded. "Alright," he said. "Alright."
She kissed his shoulder and stood. "Come to bed."
He followed her, but not before glancing one last time at the bat by the crib. Hollow plastic. Hollow dreams. Or maybe just the very first seed of something real.
The next morning, Adrian was awake before either of them. When Marek stumbled out to the living room, rubbing his eyes, he found the boy sitting there in a nest of blankets and stuffed animals, his fat little fingers curled around that same bright yellow plastic ball.
He was babbling nonsense words to himself, turning the ball over, wide eyes studying every dent and scratch like it was the most important thing in the world.
Marek crouched beside him slowly, careful not to break the spell. He reached out, palm up.
"Throw it to Tata?"
Adrian blinked, processing, mouth slightly open. Then he squealed and tossed the ball—a crooked, goofy arc that barely covered two feet before plopping into Marek's waiting hand.
Perfect.
"Good throw," Marek whispered, smiling wide despite the lump rising unexpectedly in his throat. "Perfect."
This was the start.
Not of a career. Not of training. Of play. Of family. Of love.
The competition, the scouts, the championships—they'd come later.
For now, there was just a father and a son and a slightly dented yellow ball rolling across the carpet of a too-small Warsaw apartment on a too-early spring morning.
➡ End of Chapter 2 → "First Catch"