As a baseball and basketball mom, I sit in a lot of bleachers. I sit in cold, metal bleachers in April when baseball season starts and it's supposed to be Spring. I sit in burning hot bleachers in July when it feels like my thighs are going to burst into flames at any minute. I sit in bleachers in high school gyms, in metal folding chairs of the smaller auxiliary gyms and on the smelly hand-me-down sofas that populate the waiting rooms of indoor training facilities.  And really, over time I don't even notice what I'm sitting on because I'm watching my boys and their teammates so intently. Even though I'm supposed to be totally chill about the whole thing because "it's just a game, blah, blah, blah." I'm usually fidgeting and changing positions and sometimes getting up to pace around a lot because I'm hoping, pleading and praying for a big, fat, humongous win. Make no bones about it, there has never been a game where I started out not wanting a massive victory. Sure, the lessons brought from losing are critical to raising well-adjusted, resilient children, but there hasn't been a single time when I looked forward to those teachable moments.

I remember the days when I couldn't really pay attention to the game because I was trying to wrangle a toddler during an older brother's game. I barely knew when the game was over much less what the score was. But those days are long gone now. I can actually watch every inning. I can even keep track of the score and notice my kid's body language and his performance. After close to fifteen years of watching the game of baseball, I actually understand the rules and can even sometimes pick out the difference in a curve ball and a fast ball. And even more, I understand a fact about this game that has been said a zillion times: Baseball is a game of failure.

So, it might follow that you would think that after all this time - all the runs, all the strikeouts, all the errors, all the ESPN-worthy plays and all the pop flies that I have witnessed  - I would be an expert at comforting my children in the face of loss. And yet, no matter how many times I've bundled a disappointed loser into the back of my SUV, I'm still not that great at it. I still struggle to find the right words. You would think that I'd have the "It's all about having fun!" line down pat. 

Listen, it is all about having fun. I know that's true. But - as previously mentioned- you know what else is fun?

Winning.

There. I said it. My name is Jenn and I am a mom who likes winning. I like it way more than losing. WAY. Winning is fun. I know because I used to beat my kids at Candyland all the time.  And I have zero shame about it.

The problem is that with the invention of social media, you would think that no one's kid has ever lost a darn thing. We, sports parents, have a hard time keeping it real in regard to our children and their sports endeavors. We certainly love to write of home runs, double plays, pitching shutouts and championships. I am guilty of posting way more photos of smiling, fist-pumping, victorious champions. It is the rare occasion that that we see a proud parent post the photo of the strike out, the error or the fallen face of the runner-up.

Still, losing is, of course, part of sports and it might be one of, if not the most essential skills, for a kid to learn to do well. I hate it. I really do, but as I look back on many years of baseball, I acknowledge that those losses have been more important to my kid's development of character, resiliency and heart than any championship ever could be.

I know. It's such a bummer.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the game of baseball gives us plenty of teaching moments. In The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, this aspect of the game is eloquently defined by the battle-worn catcher, Mike Schwartz, the leader of a fictional college baseball team.

"Baseball, in its quiet way, was an extravagantly harrowing game. Football, basketball, hockey, lacrosse - these were melee sports. You could make yourself useful by hustling and scrapping more than the other guy. You could redeem yourself through sheer desire. But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric - not scrum, but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. You couldn't storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did while playing football. You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you (screwed) up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error, but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?"

It's a brutal sport to play (and to watch), but it is one I would choose for my kids again and again. High School tryouts in our area are next week and kids who have played the game since their helmets were too big for their little heads will willingly walk right into this "extravagantly harrowing game". I'm feeling a bit sad about this as it will be the first season that I will not fill in the calendar with the practice and game schedule for my oldest child. I first penciled in his tee ball schedule in 2004.

As I look back and reminisce over all the years of watching him play, although those wins sure were fun, I am keenly aware that it was the losses and failures that brought him to the man he is now and will serve him well as he becomes the man he wants to be. This baseball season will find him in his first year in college in a brand new town, a new state and with new challenges. There will be no number on his back this year. My tub of oxi-clean will not run out as quickly as it did last year. And yet, the lessons that he learned in baseball will stay with both the boy and his mama.

There is no doubt there will be losses as he fights his way toward his future. There will be failures and setbacks. There will be times he'll feel the call is wrong and unfair. There will even be times when no matter how hard he tries, how much he prepares, how sure he feels that he'll make it safe to home, the ball will get there first and he'll be tagged out.

Of course, many other experiences will fuel his ability to meet those challenges, but I believe that his memories of baseball will be the ones he might most often draw on to force himself to pick himself up, dust off the dirt and trot back to the dugout to wait his next turn at bat.

So in celebration of the start of the 2018 baseball season and in acknowledgement of losing and all that it teaches our kids, as well as just for the sake of keeping it real here at NVTBL, I'll do what is completely antithetical for this social media age. The truth is sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. We've lost in this family a whole heckuva lot. Please enjoy this look at my losers, friends. I love them so. And though we wouldn't choose these days again, I will forever be as grateful for their losses as I am for their wins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again,

Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. . ."

-Theodore Roosevelt

 

Jennifer P. Skinner

http://viewfrombehindhomeplate.blogspot.com/