Jane Doe, Alive and Well

We need to talk.

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I’ve been avoiding you…it was true, really, what I told you about our computer having some problems, and how incredibly busy I was during “birthday party season” at our house, and yes, both sets of wonderful parents did come to visit for a while, and then there were the few days that I was consumed with making sure I could avoid criminal prosecution (oh, did I forget to mention that? I’ll have to write about that later…)
But those aren’t the entire reasons why I’ve stayed away so long.

I know it’s going to be hard to hear, and I’ve never been known for tact, so I’ll just come right out and say it.
I have a new love.

As with most love affairs, this one is moving way too fast. And, also like most love affairs, it’s temporary. After all, baseball season is only three months long. If you’re in farm league, that is. Which my son is.

It’s a testament of my great love for boy child number one that he gets to play baseball. I carry a lot of trauma from suffering (no exaggeration, there) through seasons of my younger brother’s tee-ball games, then through years of watching him pitch for little league. I can remember feeling like I was going to get sick, I was so nervous for him out there on the mound. Already a less-than-exciting sport at those early levels, the hours just seemed to drag on and on and on. Remember, this was before walkmans, cell phones, ipods – it was aaaages ago.

So when boy child expressed his desire to play ball this year, I could barely suppress a groan. Soccer? You bet. Swim? No sweat. Basketball? Oh yeah. Baseball? Pleaseohpleasenotbaseball!!!

Softball was not in my repertoire of sports in high school. I refused to play it. I thought that girls who played softball were only quasi-athletes. (Okay! Okay! I was wrong! I’m just telling you what I thought way back then.) I mean, I can play baseball. I was forced to play enough in PE and family games that I even figured out I could switch hit – not surprising for a lefty in a right-handed world. But I never learned the finer points of correct form, never learned that it had strategy, and definitely never developed a love for the sport.

Until now, that is.

Daddy’s presence was required at the opening ceremonies of the new Sherwood Forest Disc Golf course – and the first baseball practice was scheduled at the same time. The e-mail coach sent out made it clear that parent participation was both needed and expected. So I grabbed my glove (of course I own a mitt! I am an American!) and followed my son on to the field.

It was….fun!

It was more than fun, it was…mystical, in a way. I felt like I was being given a sneak peak into something very special in a young boy’s life, this time called “little league”. We are so lacking in rites of passage in our society, so deficient that I wonder if this substitutes for one. How many thousands of boys (and girls, too, but I’m not writing about young ladies) are learning to “elephant swing” and “feed the monkey” and “coil like a cobra” this time of year? How many of their coaches learned the same things, decades ago? If we passed down our love and values and morals as actively and enthusiastically as we pass down the correct way to hold a bat, maybe our families (and thus our society) would be healthier than it is today.

I mused on this as I was checking each boy’s grip and stance at station one. The coach I was assisting quickly instructed me in the proper grip, swing and stance, the common mistakes the boys make and how to correct them. I had to take a couple of swings myself, of course. I felt a little giddy. I knew how to correctly hold a bat! (You gotta line up the knuckles correctly.) I didn’t have to fake any enthusiasm while holding the hit-stick; when I heard the distinct sound that meant the player had connected correctly, the words of encouragement came pouring out from the coach and me.

The next practice I learned about throwing- how to hold the ball, how to “swing – step – throw”, how to play around the clock. My son’s probably wishing I wasn’t at practices, because now I’m a stickler about warming up, correct stance and correct glove position when catching. I tell him to “get a dirty glove” on the grounders and to “look it in” all the way to the mitt.

There’s a lot to know and practice, so you can see where my time’s going. Those afternoon hours of cold winter days are being put to a different use than pounding on the keyboard; now I’m pounding on a mitt. I’ve got important things to pass on, like "take time to set up" , "look where you want the ball to go", and "remember, we win as a team, and lose as a team".

Good advice for baseball. Great advice for life.

Jane Doe Thanks

All the coaches giving their time for youth sports, all the parents supporting their kids playing sports, and all the businesses sponsoring teams so the leagues can exist. Having the opportunity to play sports almost year-round is just one more positive thing about raising your kids in Chico.

An extra special thanks to the firefighters from the station by Wildwood Park, who brought over several arm loads of towels for the kids to dry off with after they were absolutely soaked to the bone from the unexpected deluge on Friday afternoon. A lot of boys would have been even colder if not for those warm, dry towels. Now that’s going above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks, guys! Sorry you ended up with the extra laundry, but we sure appreciated those towels.