Travis: 27 years
Drew: 23 years
Dad: 57 years
The scene in the first frame of the Doonesbury cartoon shows Mike Doonesbury sitting up in bed with his very pregnant wife, Joanie. Joanie is reading a book, and Mike is leaning over, talking directly at her bulging belly. “Get this one, kid. This happened to me once. Runners on 2nd and 3rd, two outs, . . . .” Joanie interrupts: “Mike, have you considered that he might not like baseball”? To which the expectant dad replies, hesitatingly: “Uh, yeah. Sure. That’ll be OK, of course.” In the final panel Mike says, as though responding to their fetal athlete, “‘Golf,’ you say? What, are you a wimp”?
My wife and I have two grown sons. One of them was the captain and #1 player on his Division 3 tennis team. Ah, D-3 sports – how delightful. True student-athletes (in that order — student . . . athletes). It was so much fun – they competed, a few parents and maybe a handful of other fans would turn out, sometimes we’d win, sometimes we’d lose, then we’d go out for dinner and have some laughs.
Our other son plays Division 1 baseball. D-1 athletics is a different beast. Here’s an indication of just how different it can be. Last season there was some “big game” in D-1 college football. In the pre-game build-up there were TV interviews with some of the men who had been involved in earlier editions of this big rivalry. One of the men was an 80-some-year-old guy who had dropped a pass that, had he caught it, would’ve meant victory instead of defeat in this “big game” in the ’40s. And he cried as he retold it. Here’s a guy in his 80s who had spent half a century helping people with life-and-death issues, had raised a son who became a leading obstetrician in the community, and the memory of a ball dropped sometime before the Second World War still brings him to tears. That shows the power (and, perhaps, misplaced intensity) of D-1 athletics. But still. We love sports, don’t we? And baseball is our secular religion. I have now spent four years watching my son play (and, worse, watching him not play) D-1 baseball, and so have some very strong thoughts on the matter. As a service to the new or soon-to-be dad who likewise enjoys baseball, I’ve compiled some of this wisdom and share it here, generously. If you have a son, or think that someday you might, and if you think you might want to maximize his chances of playing college baseball, this list of advice will be of value to you.
To Do List – To Help Junior Play College Ball
– Ya gotta start early. No, not Little League – earlier. Not throwing the ball in the front yard – before then. It starts with his name. My kid has competed for a position with Raynor, Kolt, Beamer, Brooks, Shaver, and Kevin. (Kevin? Oh well – he was very good.) You need to pick a jock-y name. If you are relatively short and fast and expect that your kid might be, too, consider Scooter or Buzz or Jets. If your family gene pool tends more toward the endomorphic, your would-be catcher or 3rd baseman will benefit from a name that’s more substantial, like Buck, or Tank, or Gage. If you want to go way creative, how about “Granite”? In all cases avoid names that begin with a “V” (“Vern”), names that can be a girl’s name (“Lynn”), or both (“Val”).
– Actually, you should get started even earlier – before your kid is even conceived. The cut-off date for Little League eligibility is April 30th. This means that if your kid is born in May he’ll be 5 years and 11 months old when he starts T-ball, competing against some kids who have just turned 5. More to the point, he’ll be a hulking (read: pubescent?) almost-13-year-old playing against some elementary school guys who just turned 12. So, once you start thinking about having kids, if you’re into baseball September is the month for romance!
– Throw the ball. Roll the ball. Balls. Lotsa balls. The research shows that early exposure to bouncing balls leads to an intuitive understanding of physics which translates to good eye-hand coordination. Nah – I just made that up. But it can’t hurt.
– Hold him back a year, before he starts kindergarten. If you fear you’ll have a hard time selling this to a spouse who is less convinced of the importance of sports, here’s a phrase that is sure to work: “Sure, Slammer is way smart, but I’ve been reading about boys being slower than girls to develop social integration skills, and I believe we’ll minimize the chances of his being a social outcast if we hold him back a year.” At no time mention the obvious benefits of being the only kid on the freshman team who has to shave daily.
– Sink a pitcher’s rubber and a home plate into the back yard, 46 feet apart. Do “baseball and math.” When he’s in 2nd grade and practicing his arithmetic, give him a problem (“2 + 1”) then when he answers correctly, have him throw three pitches.
– Teach him to switch hit. Just as soon as he masters hitting the ball off the tee one way, turn him around and teach him to hit left-handed. You might even consider devoting an entire Little League season to batting the “other” way. While it might mean fewer hits that year, it will be an investment that will pay off big-time. Good switch hitters don’t get platooned and played against only lefty or righty pitchers.
– This next one is a little tricky. Always, always tilt the field in your son’s favor. But as you do so, take care not to make it apparent to anyone that you are. It probably should go without saying that you have to be circumspect about your intentions, and not let any of the other dads know you’re trying to give your kid an advantage. Rake the field before a game that your son isn’t playing in. Umpire for the older kids’ games. Hey, we’re all just out here to give the kids an experience, right? But while you’re doing that you’re also sizing up little Zoomer’s competition for those college scholarships in 10 years. Certainly don’t let your son know what you’re up to – he’s got to think that he’s makin’ it all happen just by dint of his own talent and hard work. And he is. Even with all your machinations, still there will be plenty of hills for him to climb, plenty of hardships that will test him and make him stronger. But through it all, all those other kids will have, on the average, the same number of obstacles, and their daddies (some of them; more on them below) are doing all they can to tilt the field in their kid’s favor, so if you don’t do likewise your kid will always be playing uphill. Also don’t let on to your spouse. Sometimes spouses become ex-spouses. Plus, she may not appreciate the amount of time and energy you put into applying Moneyball stats to games between seven-year-olds. When she asks you why you check the wind direction every morning as soon as you wake up, do not let on that you’re just scheming not to let young Thunderball Jr. pitch if the wind is blowing out. Rather you’re just, uh, wonderin’ if it’s a good day to water the lawn or if the wind will blow the sprinklers off line. Yeah, that’s it.
– Here are a few quick do’s and don’t’s regarding Little League:
o Do:
— Build a pool in your backyard, for that end-of-the-season party, and ask your wife to dress up a little to attend all Little League games – you need to give the best coaches every reason to consider drafting your kid.
— Always remember, if you’re the coach and drafting a team, it’s often not who you get that makes the difference, it’s who you don’t have to take. (Once when I was a first-year Little League coach I was learning the ropes. We all showed up one spring morning for tryouts – kids with their gloves, caps, and nervousness, the coaches with their lawn chairs, clipboards, and loftiness. The kids would swing at three pitches, run the bases, take three grounders, take three fly balls, and go get a snow cone. We mature and perceptive assayers of talent would make little scribbles on our clipboards, in anticipation of that night’s draft, up in the coaches’ room. At one point one of my friends, a long-time coach, looked over my shoulder and asked “What’s ‘AAAC’?” I said, “Avoid at all costs.” To which he said, “Oh, you mean ‘NFW.’”)
o Don’t:
— Ever ever ever say anything bad about another kid. His mom is sitting right behind you. No, I know she wasn’t there a minute ago. But she is now. And she will remember what you said. For ever and ever. And ever.
— Get too exercised about any umpire’s call. It is Little League. Yeah, it woulda been nice if the ump had actually known that the infield fly rule doesn’t apply with two outs, and given that the other team circled little Gamer’s pop-up like they were being repelled by its magnetic force, and it dropped in for what would’ve been a game-winning double, thereby increasing G’s batting average to .840, still. It’s Little League. Big whup. A smooth .825 still ain’t bad. And everyone will remember your ugly display long after they’ve forgotten who won that game between teams of eight-year-olds.
— Relatedly, never let your spouse toss a folding chair in anger loudly against a metal fence. Someone you know might get it on video tape. I’m not sayin’ this ever happened in our family. I’m just sayin’.
When your boy gets to age 13 or so (heck, it may be younger by now), start sacrificing all to get him into the best “select” summer leagues. Forgo family vacations. (OK, squeeze in four days down at the coast just before school starts.) Sell whatever you must on Craigslist in order to pay for the league fees and (here’s your vacation) to pay for travel to hot, steamy summer baseball tourneys in far-flung cities. This is the way boys get on “lists.” And the more lists you’re on, the better your chances of being invited onto a college team.
Unless you’re an ex professional baseball player or a current high school or college baseball coach, you are almost hopelessly behind (thank goodness for this article, eh?). ’Cause everyone your kid will be competing against, once he starts trying to get into college, will be the son of someone who has more talent and more wisdom about the game of baseball, and the game of baseball scholarships, than you.
But if you put your mind to it, and little Let’sPlayTwo really wants to, you (uh, I mean, he) can probably make it onto a college baseball team. Now, just before the season starts, last year’s all-conference player at your son’s position will decide to forgo that $2,000,000 offer to go pro in order to come back and play almost every inning of his next college year. Once your boy gets in, at the end of some game when we’re up 15 – 1, he’ll have to hit when the strike zone is about two plates wide, ’cause everyone is ready to go home, even the ump. If he should hit the ball he’ll be called out on a close play when clearly he was safe. But hey, it’s getting late, and time for the bus to hit the road. No one will care.
Except you.
All that. But maybe, also, your son will learn what it is to pursue excellence. He’ll get in the best shape of his life. He’ll meet new types of people – get to see up close people with tremendous talent who squander it, people with modest talent who make the most of it, people who put it all together and model for him how to, with diligence and principle, pursue a goal. And he’ll make life-long friends of some of them. And maybe he’ll get some playing time, and get to see how he performs under pressure, meeting with “triumph and disaster” and seeing if he can “treat those two imposters just the same.” And he will make you proud in the trying and the learning. And he’ll live the serenity prayer, getting some daily, first-hand experience with trying to gain “the serenity to accept things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” And he’ll learn that your admiration for him is not tied to his performance. That’s not bad, no matter which way the wind is blowing.
