Question

Baseball was always where my heart lay. However, my father did not care for baseball. Two recreational activities he enjoyed were golfing and fishing, neither of which I considered a real sport. He didn’t talk much and he wasn’t good at expressing himself. Frankly, I wasn’t entirely certain he cared about me. In a way, my father was like a familiar stranger I saw every day.

One day, watching the play on television made me want a glove of my own. To my surprise, my father said he wanted one, too. He was on the portly side, but then again, one of the famous pitchers (投手) on the Mets was even fatter. So I thought, why not?

We bought two gloves, and that evening, he suggested we go out to the courtyard and toss (掷) the ball around. I’d already practiced catching and throwing at school, but I could tell this was the first time for my father, because every time he caught the ball, it landed directly in his palm. If you’ve ever caught a ball with a baseball glove, you know how much this hurts.

But my father caught ball after ball this way. Slap! Slap! He winced (龇牙咧嘴). After about five minutes, I told him I’d had enough. It wasn’t out of mercy, but for my own self-interest. Neighborhood kids were watching and would no doubt tease me later for having an old man who didn’t know how to properly catch a baseball do that. When my father took the glove off, his palm was red and swollen.

Dad, who passed away 11 years ago, never told me he loved me. But that sound of the baseball landing in the soft flesh of his hand, over and over again—it spoke its own tender language, though at the time, all I felt was shame.

1.What does the underlined word “portly” mean in Paragraph 2?

A. Experienced. B. Cool.

C. Famous. D. Fat.

2.What can we learn from the passage?

A. The father didn’t feel hurt when catching the ball.

B. The father didn’t understand his child at all.

C. The author didn’t realize his father’s love for him back then.

D. The author criticized his father when playing baseball together.

3.What could be the best title for the passage?

A. A Crying Shame for Baseball

B. Saying “I Love You” with Baseball

C. A Loving Father and His Son

D. Living a Happy Life with Baseball

Answer 1