For the love of the game.

What a huge week for Connor and his pop.  Tuesday we had another baseball practice and it was actually fulfilling to see some of the kids make gains after only two practices.  On Thursday (yes even in the cold and damp) as soon as I got home from work I said, “Connor, let’s go work on your swing we have a game this Saturday.”  Our neighbor has a batting cage and generously gave us carte blanche to use it.  Connor cheerfully put his shoes on and his batting helmet and we trotted over.  We figured out a few things in the swing and he mostly took to it.  Then while we were playing a running game I asked him to throw the ball to me.  His release point has been off and he sometimes throws it straight into the ground.  But our neighbor’s cage has a pitching screen.  I told Connor to stand behind it and throw me the ball.  First two went into the net, from then on…awesome.

Okay, so here it is Saturday.  Game day.  As you know Connor has focus issues.  I know most of you are thinking, “What little boy doesn’t?” Without going into a ton of detail, we’ll just say that Connor wants to focus, but he can’t.  A better description is he focuses on EVERYthing, not just one thing.  So my expectations were that he mostly stay inside the ball park, occasionally look towards the batter when in the field and intermittently run to the correct base.  My expectations were very low, but I wanted him to have fun.  First inning the coach puts him at 3^rd base and asks me to go help with the left side. So I have short, 3^rd, LF, and LC.  No problem, but why would you put my son who has only been at this for two weeks of his life at 3^rd …or anywhere in the infield really?  Now my focus was on his facing the batter and hoping he might accidentally block a ball.

First batter up. “Pitcher pitch, batter bat.”  The first ball is a slow dribbler toward the short stop.  My short stop is stuck in quicksand.  Connor immediately charges the ball, picks it up about three steps from the pitcher who is waiting for the ball to get there and then throws it toward the first baseman who doesn’t field it.  Such is tee ball.  Connor is also slated to bat second.  He hits a decent ball passed the pitcher. He runs to all the correct bases, is listening to his coaches and scores his first run (station to station). We have one kid who is a straight up ball player.  His name is Dylan and in his last at-bat he smoked one to the fence on a hop.  I am predicting about 5 – 10 inside the parkers for this boy.  Anyway, he stings one up the middle in the first inning and the poor little boy on the other team who was pitching went down to field it and it hit him in the mouth.  There was a little blood and a bucket of tears.  Now I know it hurt, and tasting the blood probably made it even scarier.  But this little boy was inconsolable.  He had to leave the field, dugout, and eventually even the stands.  I predict he will never play again.  Not due to anything medical, just my hunch on how it all went down.  Put it this way, if his mom and dad don’t get a baseball in his hand by today, it’s over.  Kind of like that time you had one tequila too many…remember that time?  Well those of you who can still drink it know it was because you jumped back on the horse right away.

Next inning comes and our coach puts Connor at pitcher.  This is where Connor’s attention span helps.  He may not have even realized the plight of the other pitcher could happen to him.  But here was the even better part.  The other team hit about eight balls in the infield.  Connor went after every one of them and charged everything in front of him.  One play between second and first Connor literally ran over our first basemen trying to get to the ball.  In fact if he would have raised his arms it would have looked like the iconic Jack O’Callahan picture when the Americans beat the Russians in 1980. The moral of this story is Connor is a ball hawk.  In the third inning they put him at Left and he raced passed the third baseman and shortstop for a grounder in the hole.  He actually beat them to the ball.  We laughed and of course coached him on what and where to be.

So my point is, the kid has a nose for the ball.  He’s always been fearless (roller coasters notwithstanding), but he also has lost interest in things over short amounts of time.  Imagine my amazement that here finally is the one thing he can stay focused on for an hour.  And I mean ONE thing.  Getting to the baseball.  Now I also realize that this may not stick, and he may transition to something, lose interest, etc.  But for that one day with me out there with him he seemed to love the game as much as I did.  I cannot adequately describe how much deeper our bond was that day.  I couldn’t wash the pride off for the next two days.  I hope his interest lasts, but even if it doesn’t, that day will go down as one of my favorite days in my life.  I almost feel like Richard Dryfus should be narrating this.  After the game he was all smiles and telling Godzilla stories to his teammates.  It was awesome.  He even went over and got Josie a juice box from the after-the-game “team snack” area.  Abuelita was at the game and she said, “Marco, he actually has some talent.”  Two days later on the way to school he asked me if I would take him to an Express baseball game (local AAA team).  He really has shown genuine interest.  So I don’t know if he’s going pro or anything…but he has the intangibles.  This could get good.

Post script. Yesterday was the 19^th anniversary of my father’s passing.  I was watching the A&M baseball game on my computer just before dinner, looked down at the date and it hit me.  Dad’s last day was with me watching an A&M baseball game.  Now here I am coaching Connor and his tee ball team and it really made me feel that connection to baseball, my dad, and my best friends (thanks for connecting the dots Natalie). When I look deep inside, I know it was baseball that connected me to everything.  My dad, my friends, my College, even my transition from private school to public high school, baseball was the common denominator.  This is why I guess it is so important for me to help Connor fall in love with this game.  It’s like a courtship really, can’t rush it or push it, it just has to be.  I’m already getting thanks and feedback from parents regarding my coaching of their children and it’s only been a few weeks. Connor asked me last night again if I would get tickets to a baseball game with him.  Come on April!

Time to tap the breaks there fella

First blog in while, good to be back. I hope you at least kind of missed it.  So what was the inspiration for this?  Well, Connor signed up for tee-ball and Josie signed up for soccer.  Over the years I’ve seen countless parents ruin children’s love of sports, or anything really.  They have picked on them, pulled them, pushed them and forced them into situations and the kids stopped having fun.  Not only that, but the skill or life lesson they were trying to teach was completely lost and in some cases wasted.  I’ve seen kids who hated when games were over because they had to face the breakdown of everything they did wrong like some ESPN film study before the combine.  And to be honest, I was pushed quite a bit.  My dad was awesome, he spent so much time and gave so much of himself.  He saw potential in me that I wasn’t fully living up to and I know he wanted the best for me (now) but he kind of came at me in a way that was not conducive to getting the absolute best out of me.  At times he got performance without desire.

Fast forward 40 years.  Now I have a child starting his first tee ball season.  Although I have exposed him to sports and have tried to play catch, throw, hit, run, etc. with him, he never showed much interest in baseball.  He’d put on the glove and want to stop after two or three throws/catches. So I never pushed, just brought it up.  I didn't push because I would be devastated if he ended up hating the game I love so much. Then on February 21, one week and two days ago he said, “Dad, I want to play baseball.”  My heart raced, could it be?  Was this some cruel joke?  Did I hear another kid talking to his dad a row over and just hoped it was Connor?  Nope!  It was my little C-dog!  I calmly said, let’s go get a bat and some practice balls.  Then, I got home and started hammering the web to sign up.  As fate would have it, everything was full and the registration period ended…the day before! 

I sent out a note to my network and received some wonderful advice from friends with older kids who have been through it.  As advised, I reached out to the commissioners, volunteered to coach (even told them I was an EMT), and two days later Connor was a cub.  (Time to buy a goat)! The one condition for doing all of this was that Connor give it his best shot, and that he practice just a little every day.  Here he is at six years old and has almost zero experience, while most of his peers have at least a little and the ones with older brothers, forget about it.  But as you know, Connor does not lie and he has a heart of gold.  He promised effort and has kept his promise.  On Sunday we bought him a tee.  On Monday when I got home from work he said, “Dad will you put my tee together so we can hit?”  It was 34 degrees outside.  F&^% yeah we can go hit son, grab your coat!  I showed him a quick stance, one plane swing, and handed him the bat.  I expected him to come around to my side or hit the other direction.  Instead, he takes the bat into his fingers not palms, sets up lefty and hits a stinger up the middle.  We hit for about 15 minutes until he couldn’t feel his nose.  

I then went inside and Josie wanted to practice kicking the soccer ball. We did, she’s signed up for soccer now.  So all during the week we got him new equipment, cleats, batting gloves, a helmet, etc.  That was so stinking fun for me, I cannot describe how much.  Nita had a book club on Wednesday so my mom offered to get dinner for us at her house.  I loaded up the kids and the baseball gear as soon as I got home from work and we headed straight to moms…who lives just behind a school playground.  We went out, Connor hit balls, mom shagged, and Josie kicked her soccer ball around.  We then did a little base running.

Our first practice was Sunday March 1.  Prior to the practice I sent the coach a couple of pages of notes on drills we could do to goose development and keep the practice (and kids) moving.  It was 45 degrees and had rained most of the week.  It was wet, muddy, and cold.  Nine kids showed up and I was put in charge of the throwing station and we rotated the kids by twos into four different stations.  It was great.  What was even better was watching Connor get excited.  He insisted on wearing his new cleats to the first practice and even wanted to wear his batting helmet in the car ride over to the practice.  Awesome.  How many of you couldn’t wait to put on your uniform, those new shoes, break in the new hat, etc.?  Loving this!

We have three kids with a year of experience, two with older siblings who are okay and four who didn’t have much experience.  It was awesome.  What I also discovered was that each kid learns a little bit differently.  So I would tailor the message to the child.  All of them made gains.  It was actually quite rewarding.  One of the parents was really adamant that his kid listen to me and pay “close attention.”  I know.  I now know what I must have looked like early on before I really understood how Connor works and I thought he just wasn’t paying attention or following instructions.  

With the season coming quickly and our first practice game a mere week away, the coach and I were emailing about what the priorities are to get the kids ready.  I made him a list of five offensive things, and five defensive things.  Essentially the rules of the game with listening to your coaches, knowing how to run the bases and in what order.  Where to throw the ball etc.  But a friend of mine who is just two years removed from tee-ball and is in coach pitch told me about some of those coaches who teach their kids how to win but not how to play baseball.  As many of you know I’m as competitive, if not more, than the next guy.  I love the game of baseball and see it as a beautiful tool to enjoy and provide life lessons.  It is the one of the few games that is truly a team game; you can work around a superstar.  A game where a team playing together can win against a collection of superior athletes. A game where backing up your teammate is required (life lesson).  Finally I think it’s one of the few games where anyone at any size can play.  Anyway, I thought about it and asked the coach if perhaps we should send a note to the parents, kind of a “what to expect from your coaching staff” letter.

Well for those who know me, sometimes I start running downhill and I just get going.  I think my attempt to let the other parents know that we would teach proper mechanics, having fun, good sportsmanship, and learn the game got away from me.  I may have overshot the runway with my 3 page manifesto on what makes baseball great and why tee-ballers don’t need to learn how to fake catch a line drive on a cinch double in the gap to freeze a stealing base runner.  So I cut it down so I don’t scare the hell out of the parents trusting me with their kids.  This is going to be fun, I just have to remember these kids are 5-6 and maybe tap the breaks once in a while.