I just got to spend two days watching a professional baseball team that my son now plays for… Matt was drafted two weeks ago by the Cleveland Indians. A week later, they flew him out to Cleveland where he joined up with their single-A team, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers (Niles, Ohio). Thursday he had his physical, signed his contract, participated in media day with the local press, and moved in with his host family. Friday, he was on a bus for three games in West Virginia (Black Bears; Pirates affiliate) – and back on the bus Sunday night for three games in Batavia, NY (Muckdogs; Marlins affiliate) where I was able to meet up with him.
To be honest, I truly never thought this day would happen. Of course, through all of the 18+ years of the boys playing baseball, I have encouraged them, supported them, tried to help them figure out how to get to the next level – and (almost*) always smiled and made enthusiastic noises when Matt talked about his driving aspiration to get drafted some day and play professionally.
Every kid who plays at some point says “I want to be a baseball player when I grow up.” But I never in a million years believed it could happen. I mean, really, how could you look at a kid going into his freshman year in high school at 5’5”, maybe 140 lbs, with braces on his teeth and believe that he had a snowball’s chance of becoming this?
But he did. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the last two weeks as we’ve been walking around in an elated daze with Matt setting off on this new adventure. I’ve realized that there is something I need to learn from this. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life chosen a direction that had a low probability of coming true. Throughout my life, I have been nothing if not pragmatic in my decision-making. Certainly I have taken risks, but they were always carefully evaluated risks that I had every reason to believe I could overcome…
There are a ton of things I’ve learned over the days, weeks, months and years of baseball seasons with my boys:
- The only restaurant in Brecksville, Ohio (Go Bees!! and Go Gators!!) with a kitchen open after 10pm when you get back from an away game is Sakura Sushi; in Green Bay, Wisconsin (Go Bullfrogs!!) it’s Old Chicago
- How to find a Subway sandwich place in almost any small town in Ohio and surrounding states where travel baseball is played
- How to keep 15 sets of uniforms sorted out properly when doing team laundry overnight in hotels and laundromats (Sharpie markings on the waistbands are a must!)
- The parents in the stands with opaque water bottles or coffee thermoses may not be drinking what you think they are
- There is actually a large and thriving medical specialty in the field of pediatric orthopedic sports medicine
- One can survive 4 straight years of watching T-ball, but barely!!
- You can actually eat Chipotle more than 3 nights in a week without turning into a burrito
- The best place in the world to be is in the stands on a summer evening with the sun going down and my scorebook in hand watching the boys (men!) warm up
- Baseball families are an amazing and supportive network to be a part of
- If a kid gets hit in the thigh with a fastball, it makes a bruise where you can actually count the stitches from the ball that hit him
- And many more….
But it is just this last week that I learned the most important thing from my son: If there is something you truly care about, maybe it shouldn’t matter that there’s only a tiny chance of making it. Maybe you should let yourself care about it and work for it and see what happens… take the risk and go. Even the journey and the striving can be pretty cool! In the last few years as Matt’s baseball path kept going and going well beyond what I ever expected, I’ve said many times – “Wow, what an amazing day! Even if this ends tomorrow, how COOL was that!” I said it again today 🙂 And I hope to do a better job of living it in my own life as I continue on my own next adventures…
* As many of you know, we did have some extremely heated debates about academic quality and future career options when he decided to forego a baseball scholarship to Holy Cross in favor of the University of Tennessee. Since I was sure he was never actually going to become a professional baseball player, I really did not want to see him walk away from the broader Holy Cross experience…. I was wrong!!
The Next Chapter 