LITTLE LEAGUE

Sometimes, with the advent of summer, my thoughts turn to baseball. Not myself playing baseball—even though I did—but more so for the dozen years that I coached Little League baseball in the city where we lived. I was in my early thirties, with a young boy of my own playing, but that wasn’t the only reason I coached, I truly loved the game. In all actuality, my son would have been treated more fairly with someone who wasn’t his dad. As is all too often the case, I was harder on him than the others.

Coaching was much easier back in those days. All the boys were on a learning curve when it came to the basics of the game, but in the end, we played to win and that was okay. We learned to be good winners, and oh yes, we were good losers, too. If you didn’t practice with the team, you didn’t play with the team, and the parents were fine with that. If the boys were goofing off, they got reprimanded and the parents were okay with that, too. It was a Monday through Thursday thing so the boys could be with their families on the weekends.

We never had an issue with girls wanting to be part of the team. There was a great softball program for the girls and they loved it. My daughters played in it for years. Although I did have an assistant, sometimes I was alone with the boys, or he was. We never had to worry about suspicious parents thinking we could be abusive to their boys. They trusted us, and we respected that trust so much. I never had parents calling me and asking, “Why their boy was or wasn’t playing?” We all knew the rules and we followed them. No angry dads telling me how to coach the game; no moms yelling at me for disciplining their child; nobody calling the family lawyer on us, but sadly, that has all changed.

I have always felt that sports are such a character builder in young people as they are growing up. You learn to interact and function with others and to be a team. Later in life, those same kids, when they go out into the business end of world, will find out how important that is. You learn to be gracious winners, knowing that winning that game wasn’t just important to you—it was important to those kids on the other team to taste victory, also. When the tables were turned and you lost, you learned to be good losers and learn from your mistakes. Winning and losing—again—a huge part of life.

Here is the crux of my story. A few years ago, late in the evening, I received a call from a man who identified himself as one of the kids who played ball for me for many years. Keep in mind, that was thirty some years ago. This man had just left his son’s little league game and on the way home, he said, he started thinking about our team way back then. So he told his son about our team, and the fun we had. After he got home, he said he couldn’t stop thinking about it, so he picked up the phone and called me, just to say thanks. I teared up after I hung up the phone. Tears of pride for a seemingly obscure accomplishment in a day gone by. Before you accuse me of getting all sanctimonious on you, I want you to know my story isn’t unique; it’s done every day in this world, by dads and moms everywhere. I just want them to know how important it is in the lives of those kids—who will never forget you.