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.
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