Parker started practices for teeball this week. He’s doing well, particularly since he hasn’t had the benefit of his old man tossing with him from an early age. I usually do a good job of prepping him for the necessities of life here in the South, but this is one area I’ve fallen down in.
You see, I just don’t like baseball. Don’t get me wrong – I deeply enjoy sports. Played several and still do. But baseball was just never a high priority with me. I scratched both corneas on a barbed wire fence in elementary school (that’s why I wear glasses today) and one of the results was a slow depth perception. I can follow a large ball in just fine, but a tiny baseball whizzing in at high speeds I just can’t register. My hitting and catching is about 90% blind luck. So I just never emphasized the sport.
What’s the most difficult thing to teach a group of 6 year olds on the field? Batting more or less comes naturally – you’re just refining the technique. Same with throwing. Catching takes a bit of practice, but it’s generally just giving them glove tips and letting repetition do the work. The hardest thing to teach is teamwork.
Batter hits a slow grounder and all 15 kids swarm the ball, knocking each other over and wrestling on the ground for it. Throw to first? Not a chance – they’re going to run halfway there before they heed the coach’s urges. Relays? What? Why?
It has been really funny watching this little saga unfold between potential alpha males and disinterested betas. But the funniest thing is realizing how close this little model sits to real life.
There just aren’t a lot of team players out there.
