T-Ball

Since my son turned five in June, and I live in the suburbs, it was mandatory as an American that I sign him up with the local youth association to play t-ball. He just made the age cut-off so I wasn't too optimistic that he would be able to play or even enjoy it. I was also keeping my fingers crossed that we would get a nice and easy-going coach and not a coach who put t-ball on par with the World Series.

In the first few practices, it becomes clear that the "Mighty Cardinals" were going to be lucky to get a few hits and would probably never actually catch anything. The coach was exceptionally nice and patient with the kids and brought along the bonus of his daughter as a player. Cute as a button. She enjoyed wearing her bikini during practice and placing her stuffed animals in the outfield. She also spent the entire first game crying and yelling at the top of her lungs, "I hate this!" Entertaining for all. It also became clear in the first game that noone was all too interested in fielding. Almost every player spent their time in the outfield either kicking the dirt or placing dirt in their hats and then dumping it on their heads. The first half of the season was spent just teaching the kids to keep their eye on the ball so that they could get to the ball in a reasonable amount of time.

Then the magic of summertime and baseball started to kick in. All of the kids could suddenly hit well off the tee and even started hitting off the pitch. Almost all of them started keeping their eye on the ball and pretty much the entire team would go chasing after the ball no matter where it was hit. The coach's daughter stopped crying and started enjoying herself. We all sat in the stands and started enjoying ourselves. Our kids were actually playing baseball.

Of course we ended the season with the mandatory pizza party and trophy handout. I was skeptical about the whole thing. I'm not big on the everyone gets a trophy just for participating. Then, I heard my son's name called, watched the coach shake his hand, and give him his official bobble-head trophy with his nameplate on it and everything. He turned around holding his trophy so proudly and so excited that I just had to smile. Baseball truly is America's sport.