So this year, the Wife and I actually steered the boy away from participating in any Spring sports. His biggest problem I can only characterize as an immaturity of expectations. He expects to be great without working at it and is really upset to find out that he isn’t great without working at it. Last year, every time out for baseball was a battle if he got out or didn’t get a hit or anything. It got to the point where it wasn’t fun for him or me.
The other point against his participating is that he’s already involved in Scouts and martial arts. So his after school time is already filled to a degree by that stuff. Adding 2 more night of baseball to the mix, even for just a few weeks, would have been that much less time for himself. He values that time and the Wife and I don’t want to take it from him if that’s what he really wanted. Ultimately, that’s what he chose.
The lass, on the other hand, couldn’t wait for Tee Ball to start this year. She even started practicing before the season started. The big surprise for me was that I was contacted about coaching one of the teams this year. Having helped coach 2 Tee ball teams and a coach pitch team, it seemed like something I was capable of handling.
We had our first practice tonight. A nice bunch of kids. I knew some of them already, making things easier for me. The hardest part was the field itself, which must have been tilled to prep it for the season. The last couple of days of rain softened it considerably and our feet were sinking in as we were walking on it. It was odd because the field didn’t look wet. The kids were amused when the lass lost one of her shoes when it got sucked off by the mud. I moved the rest of the practice into the outfield after that.
I kept the practice short. Or, at least, as short as I could. Mainly, we just stuck to the basics of catching and a little practice hitting the ball off the tee. Opening Day is this weekend, so they’ll be fine for that. I’ll have the rest of the season to mold them into Major League talent…