Don’t get so excited.  Don’t get so intense.  That’s what I try to tell myself three nights a week around 5 p.m.  My wife reminds me after every game night, “It’s just ten-year-old baseball.”  The problem might be me.  I have a hard time thinking of any opportunity to play baseball with the word “just” describing the game.  Maybe t-ball, but probably not.  Technically speaking, I might be the teeniest bit too high-strung when it comes to baseball.

Little League Baseball is not as important as things like birth, marriage or a fulfilling career.  But then again, maybe Little League Baseball is a sort of happy preparation for the really important things in life.

crestwood thunder baseball

Last night our regular season came to an end with a victory against a great team.  Tournaments begin this weekend.  The ten-year-old team I’ve had the privilege to coach went 13-4.  Pretty good for a team that was thrown together on draft day in a league populated with teams who have been playing together since t-ball and coach pitch.  We’ve all learned a lot.  The boys have learned to play great ball, to work as a team, and that everyone, regardless of ability, has to fulfill their role.  I’ve learned that I am not a huge fan of the word “just,” as in “only,” as in “not quite as important as.”

It’s is true on one hand.  Little League Baseball is not as important as things like birth, marriage or a fulfilling career.  But then again, maybe Little League Baseball is a sort of happy preparation for the really important things in life.  As with all preparatory activities, they only serve their function if one refuses to add the word “just” to preparation.  It is not just practice.

We’ve had one ongoing rule on our team: when you make mistakes, make them the right way.  This means when our batters strikeout, they go down swinging.  “Knees bent, butts down, dirty gloves.”  I am a broken record.  We talk about hustle, especially when we’re coaching Russell.  It’s just fun to say, “Hustle, Russell.”

In addition to becoming better baseball players, you can see confidence glowing in the boys’ eyes.  They have begun playing with trust.  If one of them makes a bad throw, they know that their teammate on the other end will take a bruise before letting a throw get by him.  Yeah, they still make plenty of mistakes, but they make them well.  Call me arrogant, but I think the confidence and the trust began when our coaches refused to use the word “just” when we talked with the boys about their ten-year-old baseball team.  We’re not a win-at-all-costs group of men.  We tolerate errors and losses as long as they happen the right way.  Old adages generally hold true: “It’s not winning or losing that counts, but how you play the game.”

Ten-year-old baseball is not life.  But it is more than just ten-year-old baseball.  In the aftermath of a crumbling marriage I’ve never heard anyone announce, “It’s alright, she was just my first wife.”  Or console a friend saying, “He’s just one of your kids, the others are fine.”  If you’re going to wear a glove and a pair of cleats, you might as well play the right way; even if it is just a game.  If you’re going to be married, hold a job, grow a garden, play guitar, whatever… you might as well do it the right way.  Life really is not about winning and losing.  It’s a lot of showing up.  And since you’ve shown up, you might as well give your maximum effort; “be all there,” I like to say.

(I’ll update you on the tournament progress of the mighty Crestwood Thunder throughout this weekend.)