Batter Up!

I like to say that my husband is a guy's guy in all the best ways. To me this means he doesn't take longer than I do to get ready to leave the house, he actually does hate to go shopping, he is handy around the house, and he loves sports. On the flip side, he still holds the door open for me, changed his fair share of diapers and tries to spend as much time with the family on weekends as he can. Emotionally, I can always rely on him to be the calm in my storm. That being said, I recently realized what might end up being his emotional Achilles heel for years to come.

It was our son's first Little League game. And, in the interest of full disclosure, a little background is in order. At 5 1/2 our son is by far the youngest player on his team. At his age he should be playing t-ball, but t-ball bores him. No one pitches to him, there are no outs and he can hit a mile off the tee. So, after talking to some fellow parents and coaches, we tried out for farm. At try-outs they give each child a number that corresponds to their age. Our son was 579 (5 and .79 years.) The boy at the front of the line was number 872. Welcome to the world of competitive sports! Each child took infield grounders, played first base, took batting practice, and was timed running the bases, all while being videotaped. After try-outs all we could do was wait and hope he was drafted. He was.

Fast forward to our first game of the season. We were the visiting team so our team was up first. The coach printed out his batting order for the game and instructed each player to find his or her name on the list. My son was hitting lead-off. The beauty of a 5-year-old is that he didn't know to be nervous. In fact, he was more worried about finding a batting helmet that fit than being the first player in the batter's box. When it was time, he stepped calmly into the box. He assumed the stance that my husband had taught him and tried to pound into his memory (not literally, at least not yet.) I looked over at my husband and he was visibly nervous. This definitely caught me off guard. After all, my husband was not the one shouting at our son to be aggressive during his soccer games. I was. My husband was not the one waiting on pins and needles to see which kindergarten teacher our son would have. I was. And yet, here he was on opening day, nervous for our son's first at-bat.

In the end, our son ended up with a hit his first and every at-bat that afternoon. This sounds more impressive than it was considering the fielding skills of six- and seven- year-olds. Our son was simply thrilled to be playing "real" baseball and dad was too.