I’m a dad. And dads go to baseball games. Mostly those of the Little League variety. As a boy, I played Little League baseball. Very successfully, I might add. But I remember being nervous. Nervous that I’d hit the batter when I was pitching. Nervous that I would get hit when I was batting. And because I lived through it, I can see it in my own son, and I can see it in his teammates. They’re having fun. But they’re nervous. They want to be perfect. Every pitch has to be a strike. Every swing of the bat, a home run.
I know what they are feeling. I remember it all so well. The sweat on the palms. The butterflies in the stomach. The flash of light-headedness that would strike with the crack of the bat and the immediate paralyzing fear that your feet were never going to carry you fast enough to the place you were supposed to be when bats are cracking. And worst of all, the feeling of all of your teammates’ eyes focused squarely on you when all of those otherwise unfounded fears came to fruition.
On one of the many brutally hot days of baseball season when the games were running well behind schedule as they always seem to run, I watched not just Jackson’s game but the game before his. I watched as batter after batter approached the plate. After 12 innings of Little League baseball, one of the greatest self-evident truths of the baseball universe revealed itself to me: Not all batters are created equal.
On any given Little League team, there will likely be no more than 3 all-star kids who can hit the ball with any regularity. Three, tops. For the rest of the team, it’s a coin flip at best. In fact, let’s be honest. For some, it’s more likely that they’ll hit the lottery than that little white ball. And trust me, I don’t say that to disparage the coaching or the players. It’s simply a matter of fact. Their muscles, their hand-eye coordination, their timing, they are all still in the earliest stages of development. Most of the kids aren’t even sure they like the game. But everyone bats in Little League, leaving the pitcher to face every single one.
Just as every one of those batters will step up to the plate swinging for the fences, the pitcher will approach each of them as if they all pose an equal threat. And in Little League, there aren’t a lot of pitchers perfecting their slider or knuckle ball. All the Little League hurler has to work with is speed. He’ll stand on the mound convinced that he needs to throw every pitch as hard and fast as he can. He’ll sacrifice accuracy and end up walking batters who would have never connected with the ball at any speed.
As a dad whose Little League playing days are long gone, watching this battle time after time, I can see it as clearly as the freshly drawn lines of the batter’s box. On this field, at this age, the pitcher isn’t battling the batter at all. He’s only fighting with himself. A fight that he is far less likely to win.
When the games wrapped up and Jackson and I once again settled into the comfort of an air-conditioned car, I decided there was a lesson to share. Maybe even an opportunity to make him a smarter, better baseball player.
“Hey, great game,” I said. “You know, your pitcher seemed pretty frustrated today.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “He gets angry, and then he can’t throw it as good. But he’s a good pitcher.”
“Absolutely, he’s probably the best pitcher on your team. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to win the game for you guys.”
“You know, Dad, he was trying to throw a curve ball.”
“No, he wasn’t, was he?”
“Yeah, he was. He told me. But Dad, he doesn’t need to throw a curve ball. This isn’t MLB. He could hurt his arm.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “He just might be trying a little too hard.”
Ok, so maybe the gems of baseball wisdom I had extracted while melting in the heat of a thousand suns weren’t as elusive to such a young mind as I had originally thought. Jackson saw it quite plainly. I guess this ride home wouldn’t include the typical ‘Father Knows Best’ lecture. So, I had a lot of time to think to myself. And I realized that maybe I was just as guilty of taking a blind approach to life as those Little League pitchers seemed to be.
How many times have I stepped into a meeting determined to throw a fastball right past the co-worker across the table when all I needed to do was get it across the plate?
How many times have I found myself frozen on the mound, so to speak, searching for that elusive curveball that would befuddle the batter and blow away the crowd, only to end up frustrating myself in a pointless pursuit of a power I do not possess, instead of simply settling in and enjoying the game?
Aren’t we all guilty of getting a little inside of ourselves sometimes?
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that those Little League pitchers shouldn’t do everything they can to be the absolute best they can be. Not at all. Whether it’s a Little League pitcher or you – or me, for that matter, we should all be willing to push beyond our comfort zone from time to time.
The key is knowing when the time is right.
As we pulled into the driveway and rolled to a stop in the garage, I sat behind the wheel. I sat there, thinking. Jackson rounded up his baseball glove and bat and water bottle and DS and a thousand wrappers from all the granola bars and Gogurts he’d eaten in the last week.
“You coming, Dad?”
“Yep,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
But I sat there a little while longer, thinking about everything I had witnessed that day. Reminding myself what those 10-year-olds had taught me.
Every pitch does not have to be a strike. And every swing does not have to be a home run.
I reminded myself that whether it’s at work or with friends – or maybe even with my own family, I need to take some time. I need to slow down and look around me. Know the situation I am facing. Be present enough in the moment that I know exactly what the moment demands.
And then, I can do whatever it takes. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Sounds easy enough. But to tell you the truth, I think playing baseball might just be a whole lot easier.
