The Boys of Summer

We had a great practice tonight.

There’s something about a father and son. Cat Stevens wrote, and sang, a great song about it back in the 70’s…it’s like being in an 18 year argument. There’s a running tension between the men in a family because, basically, they all feel like they should be in charge. This is especially hard on a young boy, who is pretty much at the bottom of the food chain. I am constantly looking for positive things that I can do with my son. He is a typical brain-damaged child and most of what he hears from me on a regular basis is negative (pick that up, turn out the light, flush the toilet, what the hell were you thinking!).

My son is very big on team sports (football and baseball). I have been coaching on his baseball teams for the last five years. He is a normal, clumsy kid and struggles as many do with some of the fine motor skills and muscle-memory needed for baseball (it takes a lot of work to be good at this game). Unfortunately, he has some grandiose ideas about his ability…I don’t know how common this is, but he catches a single fly ball and gets the idea that he’s Cal Ripkin. Last year, he played a moderately good outfield for our team... his fielding was not good enough for an infield position. At the plate, he couldn’t hit a barn with a Mack truck. I spent a lot of time with him on the off-season…playing catch and hitting at the batting cages near our house. With the repetition, he broke through the wall and is now playing up to his peers.

Tonight he played some key positions and showed some real promise. I am the team’s catching coach and I had him behind the plate. He played very well and will be one of my catchers this year (catching is one of the most difficult and important positions to the team). More surprisingly, our pitching coach had him on the mound and he preformed very well…he’s going to be in our pitching rotation. We had the boys take a fair amount of time hitting off the pitchers (our first game is ten days away). The boy hit consistently and sent a number of solid shots into the deep outfield. Finally, our manager ends every practice with a challenge where he hits difficult balls to the boys and they need to keep the hits in front of them...as they let the balls get by them, they are eliminated…my boy won tonight (second time already this year).

After the practice, I took him for a water-ice and told him how proud I was of the work he’d done to get to this point…and of the way he played tonight. He was as high as a kite! I can’t explain just how good it felt to have this singularly good moment with my son. There was no sign of our running battles, we were just enjoying each other’s company.

I’m sure this is little more than a brief cease-fire in our 18 year argument, but I think it’s one we’ll both remember as the years go by.