My Reluctant Conversion to Youth Baseball

By HAL JACOBS
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 08/30/06

For every person who whooped and hollered over the Columbus, Ga., team winning the Little League World Series Monday night, I suspect that many others watched with some kind of sadness tinged with horror at the spectacle of young boys pitted against one another and egged on by overwrought parents.

How do I know? Because I once felt that way. You see, I am a reluctant convert to youth baseball.

I grew up playing sandlot baseball and assumed my sons would be chips off the old block. My childhood field was a thing of irregular beauty. Two of the bases were longleaf pine trees, right field was closed, anything over the road in the air was a home run, anything that hit a car — you jumped on your bike and rode like the wind.

Our games weren't perfectly idyllic. We argued a lot. We cursed. Sometimes kids went home, taking the only ball with them. The shadow of an adult never darkened our basepaths.

When my first son was born, it never occurred to me that he might play, God forbid, organized baseball. After he and some of his friends were old enough, my neighborhood friend Bobby King and I started showing up at the local schoolyard every Sunday at 3 p.m. for a pickup game. Anywhere from six to 26 boys and girls of all ages, sizes and temperaments would appear. It wasn't idyllic. First off, grown-ups (us) were involved. But we owned the equipment bag and made sure things stayed low-key.

Then, over the course of a few years, everything changed. The DeKalb County school district decided a parking lot for teachers was far more important than a grassy meadow near a creek. Without our field, my older son decided it was time to join "a real baseball team with real coaches."

And one day my wife and I woke up and realized that our younger son was a bona fide jock. I wasn't positive until a dad-coach approached me at the baseball park and, after learning who my son was, declared, "He's a stud." (I thought it was a hilarious way to describe an 8-year-old, then realized he wasn't joking.)

Over the course of a few years, I somehow went from one of those quiet fathers who stayed above the fray, didn't learn other players' names, never cheered my son because his success usually hinged on another kid's failure — to a dad coach at third base whirling my arm around like a dervish to send a runner home to meet his fate, sometimes cruel, sometimes triumphant.

My younger son thrived in this atmosphere of rules, repetition, teamwork and the coherence of an experience in which every person has a definite role to play and base to cover. (His brother, a voracious reader and kind-hearted skeptic, didn't.)

As for me, I always felt a bit silly when he and I wore matching baseball uniforms and stood in line at fast-food restaurants. But I accepted this humiliation in exchange for the bigger picture.

He loves the game. I love him loving the game. It's a great game — not the one infected by a few spoiled millionaires, but the one where players play as if there's no tomorrow. I'm grateful to be part of this game, which is such a large part of his life.

That's why, when I watched the clenched faces of those parents in the stands at Williamsport on Monday night, I understood perfectly what they were going through.

They weren't watching their children from a distance. These moms and dads were feeling as if their hearts and limbs were physically attached to their sons on the field. They were experiencing the awfulness of the moment before everything turns into total victory or defeat. They were hurting because that's what love does to you – it makes you hurt.

Youth sports isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition. Some adults and children aren't cut out for it – and it's an imperfect science trying to figure out who is and who isn't. But judging from the appearance of things, it looks as if the players and families on that Columbus team were definitely cut out for it. Congratulations to everyone involved — especially the kindhearted brothers and sisters.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/0830edbaseball.html