Why Coaching Tee Ball Made My Son Sad

It’s that time of year when kids all around the United States start getting ready to play baseball.  The older kids who have played on teams in previous year eagerly pull their gloves, helmets and cleats out of winter storage excited to start playing again.  Younger kids, little boys and some little girls, are getting ready for their first encounter with the sport in a simpler form and their emotions are much more mixed.  Yes, there are some stirrings of excitement but these are offset by rumblings of anxiety and fear, not uncommon when embarking on new territory. 

This year, I volunteered to coach my four year old son’s tee ball team.  Last week, I sent an email to the man who was assigned to be my assistant coach asking him when he might be available to run practice with me.  Not surprisingly, he did not respond, either ignoring my attempt to reach out or too busy to bother.  In the great big world of adult responsibility, I suppose tee ball isn’t a high priority.  Anyway, this week I sent out an email to the parents of the kids on my team telling them practice would be this afternoon.  I asked them to please respond to let me know if their child would or would not be there.  There are seven kids on my team including my own son so in theory I should have gotten six responses.  I suppose I should consider myself lucky that three parents were kind enough to respond informing me that their sons would in fact be present.  I assumed that the other three kids – including the assistant coach and his son – would not be there and my assumption was correct.  Seriously, why volunteer to coach if you’re not even going to make an effort to communicate with the person with whom you are supposed to be coaching? 

Anyway, four kids new to the game was probably the perfect number of kids for a first practice.  It meant I could give each a kid a little individualized attention as many of them held a bat and a glove for the first time.  Yes personalized attention, something my son – who is an only child – never lacks.  And like most four year olds, he does not like to share.  So the moment I walked over to another little boy and readjusted the glove on his hand and properly positioned his feet, my son went crazy.  His face immediately fell as tears sprang into his eyes.  Sharing his mother with three other boys seemed to be his worst nightmare come true.  He stormed off the field and my heart broke as I watched him walk away. I agreed to coach because I thought it might be fun for the both of us, after all, I always loved when my father coached my team.  I guess I was wrong.  What I had hoped would be a bonding experience just caused my little man a river of angst.  But what could I do.  My spouse chased my son down while I proceeded to give a brief lesson on catching and throwing to my small troop of players. 

Now, I knew I would have to start at the very beginning and be selective in what I tried to teach.  Overwhelming them with too many rules and directions would only have frustrated and confused them.  I showed them how to stand – on the balls of their feet and knees bent – and how to get in front of the ball.  I thought grounders might be easier for them to catch than fly balls.  And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t want to be responsible for accidently giving a kid a black eye.  This fear was sort of reinforced when one father instructed his son, “Now your glove is still stiff, just hold it out and hope the ball finds it.”  Gulp!  Yep, grounders, slow, very slow, barely moving slow was the way to go.  I rolled the ball to the first boy.  With eyes wide open he patiently watched the ball hit his foot.  He then bent down, picked up the ball with his glove and proceeded to try to throw it with his glove.  Okay, I guess I didn’t start early enough at the beginning.  “Okay guys,” I held up my own glove, “You catch with your glove but then you have to take the ball out of the glove with your bare hand and you throw with your bare hand.” I demonstrated exactly what I meant while six eyes looked everywhere except at me.

Batting was a slightly better than hitting.  With the ball sitting patiently on the tee waiting for someone to strike it, contact was not impossible.  As each boy stepped up to the tee I positioned his feet, bent his knees, slid his hands together on the bat, lined up his knuckles and lifted up his back elbow.  I then stepped back, a safe distance away so as not to get struck by a bat, and the moment I let go of the child, the elbow fell, the hands drifted apart, the knees straightened and the feet were practically touching.  I sighed. He swung.  Tap!  On most occasions the ball toppled off the tee but a couple of times the boy at bat got a good piece of it and sent if flying towards the pitcher.  Each boy hit a few times and then we practiced running.  “Okay, who can tell me where first base is?” I asked and three hands pointed in the correct direction.  We practiced running.  First base – second base – third base – fourth base…no, good guess though, that one we actually call home plate.  One boy ran to the pitcher’s mound instead of second, but hey, it was sort of in the right direction.  After circling the bases a few times, the boys resumed hitting. 

And look who decided to join us. My son, tired of sitting alone on the sidelines, picked up a bat and stepped up to the tee.  I helped line him up and properly positioned the bat in his hands, but he brushed me off as if he didn’t need any help.  He swung. He hit the ball. He started to run in – you got it – the wrong direction.  As the ball rolled towards second he stepped on first, headed to second, raced to third and came back home.  “You went the wrong way,” I tried to explain as patiently as I could.  Sure he missed my base running lesson with the other boys, but we’ve done this at home before.  I know he knows which way to run.  “You have to run to first base after you hit the ball.”  Is it possible to find something simultaneously comical and exasperating?  “No,” he adamantly declared, crossing his arms - a classic gesture of defiance.  “I’m going to do it this way because I want to.”  Oh boy, and the season hasn’t even officially started.

After about forty-five minutes, two boys walked off the field to drink water and when I asked them if they were finished playing they both emphatically nodded their heads.  Kids’ attention spans are not long and since tee ball is supposed to be fun it would have been counterproductive to make them play longer.  Over on the other side of the field was an ice cream store, a perfect place to end my son’s first day of tee ball.  He ordered two scoops on a cone with sprinkles and suddenly he was smiling. He loved me once again. With the other boys gone and ice cream in his hand the world was once more as it should be.  Thank God for ice cream.