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Because of our limited playing field, the beauty in this game--the real challenge--is for me to make my throws difficult enough for my athletic, growing sons to be challenged--yet at the same time--and this is the key--respecting the practical limits of our little backyard. The perfect play, for example, is to send my older son--his back to the fence--reaching to all his height to pull in a soaring pop-up as it drops from the sky. A foot too long and it is over the fence and we are scurrying to retrieve it. A foot too short--and really--this is worse, he eyes the ball, his shoulders slump, and he steps forward and nonchalantly catches it. He punctuates his disappointment at these moments by firing the ball back at me. At 11, he already throws harder than I have ever been able to. And his throws have an alarming snap and movement to them--one diving toward my sandaled feet as it nears me, the next skipping on some unseen surface and zooming up suddenly at my face.

My younger son has his own requirements. First and foremost, he wants to catch the ball in motion. His favorite throw is a line drive, to his right, and a little over his head, that he can snare with a leaping backhand catch that ends in a tumble. If this results in a "snowcone"--the effect where the top of the ball is visible over the webbing of his glove, I get extra points. Like his older brother, he also shows his displeasure when my throws fail to test him. Luckily, he is far more tolerant of slightly bad throws on my part. Really, I can only get the perfect throw about once in every five throws. He seems to know, without saying it, that his requirements are a little more stringent, and he shouldn't grouse about a game but ineffective try on my part.

But, if in a moment of laziness, I simply lob a throw to him--a mere toss--he will hurl the ball back at me and seemingly himself with it. He releases the ball with a grunt as he charges toward me, and while he doesn't produce the Thor-like bolts of his bigger brother, his throws pop into my glove, the snap of leather on leather somehow growing louder every day.

We tinker with the minor rules of the game all the time. Most recently, my younger son has prohibited compliments after all but the most spectacular of catches. Gone, then are the days of my endless, fatherly patter--"nice catch"--"way to go"--"that's the way to follow it into your glove." I miss this, of course, but I know better than to force it or make too much of a point about it.

Besides, I have a delicious secret. If I leave them alone to catch, I will hear my older son say these very same things to his brother. For certain, their game can just as often end in a fight, but I have more than once retired to my hammock and nodded off to the rhythm of popping gloves and the voiced reassurances of love.