Legions of loyal fans, I write to you today with a heartfelt sincere message. No humorous anticdotes, or whimsical tales, just a pure honest lesson. So pay attention.
Yesterday I went to my 10 year old cousins baseball game. I thought it would be a typical 10 year old game that dragged on as ball after ball is thrown and batter after batter takes his base, till miraculously some child manages to get a hit and equally miraculous another child manages to catch the ball or field it and throw him out. But this was not that sort of game at all. The kids played one hell of a game. The pitchers were throwing strikes. The batters were hitting line drives and deep fly balls. The infielders were making diving scoops and the catchers even threw out a few would be base stealers. "Wow", I thought. These kids really know what there're doing. What good coaching they must have. That's when it happened. Some loud mouth fat mother announced to the crowd that she didn't like the coach because he didn't teach the kids that baseball is about fun and not about winning. Since when did winning become not fun? And why does everything that we teach kids have to be about fairness and fun. I applaud the coach for teaching those kids that winning is important. That's a life lesson that millions of kids used to learn from baseball. It's a game of losses. If you get a hit 30% of the time your probably one of the better hitters on the team, but you percivere till you get that hit, and that small victory makes it all worthwhile. Kids today don't get that lesson. They all get pizza and a trophy after a mandated tie game.
I then found out that they only allow each team to score 5 runs an inning so that no team can run up the score. You know when I was playing baseball, sometimes you got your ass kicked, bad. Like 30 to 2 bad. But you went out there next week and played again, and maybe you kicked the next teams ass 35 to 2, but it was a good lesson. Sometimes the world seems against you and nothing is in your favor, but it will pass, and eventually things will be in your favor again. And you don't need an umpire to follow you along in life and tell everyone "ok that's enough picking on little Billy, now it's your turn Billy."
Before I go I have to write about another brilliant ray of hope that I wittnessed. One of the kids on my cousins team, Brenden, broke his leg during a scrimmage game at the beginning of the season. He was sliding feet first into home and collided with the catcher. He had to have steel rods and pins put into his leg and couldn't walk for months. He missed almost the entire season, almost. Brenden played last night. He had a limp that no adult in their right mind would play baseball on, but he was out there. This kid was by far the smallest kid on the team, maybe 50 pounds. When he got up to bat he managed to make contact and put the ball just over the 2nd basemans head. Any normal runner would have been safe by a mile but with his limp and slow gait Brenden barely managed to make it safe on first. The dugout erupted with cheers as Brenden was on base for the first time that season. The next batter hit an almost identical ball and Brenden once again labored to make it to second base. The outfielder knew Brenden was the easy out and threw it to second base but the baseman dropped the catch and Brenden was safe. The crowd was now talking. They whispered of the possibility of Brenden making it to home plate. "Don't slide Brenden, whatever happens don't slide", his mom yelled at him from the bleachers. The next batter crushed a shot into right field and Brenden knew this was his chance. He put his head down and ran as fast as his reconstructed leg would let him. As he rounded third the kid who was on first had already caught up to him and was trailing right behind him. I could see Brendens face and there was only pure determination in his eyes. He wanted to score more than anything else on earth. The outfielder threw the ball to the cut off man, and he threw it to the catcher. With a split second to spare Brenden slid, head first, into home and touched the plate just before the catcher could tag him. The dugout emptied and his teammates ran to meet him at the plate. They high fived and cheered him the whole way back to the dugout. The fans were going crazy, even the opposing teams fans were standing and cheering. Even writing about this story now I feel such joy for that little kid.
My point is this. He had a broken leg and missed the entire season, he couldn't run, he could barely swing the bat and he sure couldn't slide. Everything in life was against him. His whole season ruined. But he didn't need the fairness police coming in and intervening. He simply needed to percivere and wait for his chance, then take it. And I can bet you that if he had not broken his leg and missed all those games and faced such adversity that he never would have felt the sence of accomplishment or joy that he felt last night. He will be telling his kids about that day, just as I'll be telling mine about it when they complain that somethings not fair. Go Brenden.
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