Jackie Robinson And The Best Years

Watching the Little League duel between Jackie Robinson and South Korea made me think of all the Little League games my son played and I managed to hang around as Assistant Coach. We had an amazing nine year run and now it seems almost amazing it has ended. Baseball is the ultimate kid sport. Something about swinging a bat and shagging balls in a dusty field makes you into a kid again and then of course the games are to die for.

Because in that moment nothing else matters but that game. And it is not just a Little League game anymore it is something between parents and their sons and daughters and it is a moment in time. Like the final game you just cant believe it will end and when it ends badly you don't really believe that either. You think you are immune to rooting for a bunch of kids in a life and death struggle but baseball doesn't put up with that. You are either in or out.

And when it does end you realize quite suddenly those were the best years. Parenting is a strange continuum of moments but doing something with  your kid that you can both participate in and both feel good about is a rare moment. And when it is over all you want to do is just have one more chance. One more game to capture all that youth again.

But of course the season is over and when they grow up all you can do is say...wow...those were the best years.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Parent Sports

Maybe it is the hope we will never get old or die. But for some reason parents go into this regression back to when they were twelve. It happens when their kids play sports. Suddenly the cares of the day which centered around making a buck take a back seat to winning a game nobody cared about before. Suddenly a  baseball game played by twelve year olds in some dusty field in the middle of nowhere has the import of a life or death struggle for the parents.

And then parents go back to being twelve. They scream. They yell. They argue. The son or daughter now has an advocate they never wanted.  They will see imaginary sleights and grand conspiracies directed against their progeny. They see scholarships and pro careers in the offing as a travel league uniform and a self important coach are the signal flares that something beyond league ball beckons and this moment could be the bellwether between obscurity and fame.

I kid you not. Listen to any parent who has a son who is about ten years old and have demonstrated some talent. There is no longer any humor in their voice as they discuss the league choices and the coaches who "want" their son. It is hilarious when you are on the other side because you have been there. You rode the train of this could really lead to something right up to the day high school ball implodes and your son says he doesn't want to play anymore.

And the parent sports end right there. No longer. No more games. All that sublimated rage goes back to the gym or overeating or the good old standby of drinking like a fish. And the worst thing is the parents realize they are no longer twelve. They are old and their sports progeny is now in college and they wonder distantly what all that was about.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

 

The Best Years

They go fast. One day you are putting the ball on the T and then the next you are driving home from a high school game that is your sons last. In between are a million games played in dusty hot fields with your son while you as the assistant coach get to go along for the ride. And you don't know that much about baseball but nine years later you know it all. Because you have been there all along as your son learns the game and then became good and then became talented and then finds out that talent has limits too.

And you have gone to McDonald's a hundred times. You have gone to Dairy Queen a hundred times but that is all over now. No longer do you savor the games won and lament the games lost. No longer do you discuss the game with the other dad coaches and replay the dramas as you coach first or second or you call the game from the dugout. No longer are you discussing the game driving home in the twilight or better still finding yourself still there in the parking lot with your son talking it over as the sun rims the trees.

Because he has grown up and college is not far away and baseball games are no longer. You no longer have bats and balls and hats and gloves in the back of your car. You no longer have field dust on your shoes and all over your seats. That now belongs to memories. And occasionally you find yourself driving past the old ball fields. They are empty now and it is getting toward winter. And you slow just a little and feel the old tug.

And you know then...those were the best years.

The Pitcher