My son likes baseball. If you ask him, he’ll say it’s his favorite sport. We have no idea where he got it from. Certainly not his anti-sports mother or his British father.
I’ve learned a lot about baseball in the past four years. I understand the term “forced out,” and I own a baseball mitt now. It’s a hard game for me to watch, but I do it because I love that kid in the uniform.
Tonight was a hard game. He played against a much stronger team — a team he actually played on last year. We were no match for them. He made it through five innings watching his former teammates beat his new team.
No one ever told me how hard it would be to watch your kid do that. I’ve watched him strike out. I’ve watched him drop balls. But tonight, watching him get more and more discouraged after every error his team made and every run the other team made — that was the hardest thing of all.
Because I love that kid in the uniform.
Honestly, I like his new team much better. I like the coaches, I like the parents and I like the kids better. They are kinder. They are making it fun. They are a better fit for our whole family.
But if I’m honest with myself — truly honest, I wanted to win. I wanted him to be proud. And I wanted a little karmic justice for a team whose players used to put down my son and a coach who, to be frank, is a bit of an ass.
There it is. I am really no better than the ass of a coach or the dad yelling on the sideline. We want the same thing. We want our kids to win. Maybe for different reasons. But the truth is I’m no better.
Admitting it feels better than squelching it down and pretending I don’t care. I do care. I care that my son feels good about himself. I care that he learns how to play this game he loves. I care about the snide comments from the field and the sidelines. I care.
Because I love that kid in the uniform.
