For about half the year, sports take over our Saturdays. Currently in the month of March, a combination of ice hockey AND baseball is swallowing up that glorious mid weekend day.
Good thing I like sports and my kids and especially my kids playing sports.
This morning we started at hockey practice with Camden, and came home just in time to change clothes, pack up the sunflower seeds and head to the baseball field for Calen's second game of the season.
I'm going to let you in on a secret. Calen's not a natural athlete. He's not the tip of the sword, an All Star, or even a starter. He strikes out most at bats, and he's struggling to keep up in the ultra-competitive 10u age group in his league even at his best position (catcher). But look at this face as we are about to leave for the game:
He doesn't care that he isn't the best. He just likes to play, for the sake of playing. As sports parents, can we please go back to this smile being the reason they play? Not for our glory or pushing them to the point of tears trying to get them to be THE BEST, but just to play for playing sake?
I have been, in the past, just as guilty about pushing him to work to be his absolute best. And I came to a revelation, why? In the end, who cares? Not me, not him, not anyone in the world. So I decided, I didn't care anymore, as long as he worked hard, did his best, and had a good attitude. The rest just simply doesn't matter.
Calen didn't start, but he played his best. He made a terrific diving attempt at a catch in right field. He didn't catch it, but he laid out mid air and almost had it (his comment after the game: If I had taken two or three more steps and THEN dove, I would have had it). He drew two walks, had en epic battle at the plate with 4 fouls before finally striking out, stole multiple bases, and has suddenly poured on this amount of speed that we've never seen from him.
And his team won, and he was happy.
We celebrated with one of his oldest baseball friends and their family at Round Table Pizza after the game. They talked a little about the game, but not really, because who cares. They're 10 and 9 year old kids that were more worried about how to split the $10 they were given 4 ways in the arcade.
And then like 15 minutes later, Calen comes out of the arcade, his eye-black melting off his face from his huge shit-eating grin, and an entire armful of tickets that he had managed to win from some pointless wheel of fortune style game.
So many tickets he was able to "buy" little light up laser blasters, a green army man, and a stuffed alligator.
You know what he took out of today's game? Probably nothing. Except that he played well, got to have pizza, and won 500 tickets in an arcade game. Because that is what matters, when you're nine.
Youth sports is amazing, if you have the right attitude.
Calen has the BEST attitude.
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