I don’t know if our community had T-ball and Parent Pitch baseball when I was a kid. I don’t remember ever hearing about it. But I wasn’t a very athletic kid, so even if I had, I probably would not have wanted to join a team.
I always enjoyed quiet and calm activities—walking in the woods, picking wildflowers, tossing a ball for the dog, reading or writing stories. The only time I did anything athletic was at the urging of my cousins, who all had siblings. Boy siblings, no less, who did play baseball. They also played with BB guns and slingshots, built rickety tree forts, and swung off incredibly dangerous-looking tree swings. The few times I took part in the rowdy games with my cousins, I was a nervous wreck. And I usually ended up getting hurt and called crybaby.
Maybe that is why I never played youth baseball. My parents knew I would end up crying.
I did end up crying the first time I ever attempted to play ball. I’m not sure if it was baseball or softball. It was in physical education class, probably in fourth or fifth grade. Some PE teacher had the bright idea that we should play ball. Never mind that some of us had never played in our lives before. We were pushed up to home plate, given a bat and told to swing at the fast and erratic ball coming at us.
I didn’t even like getting up in front of everyone, let alone having to try something new. So it was with complete and utter humiliation that I swung and missed, swung and missed and swung and missed. Thankfully, you only got three strikes. I was finally able to go hide at the end of the batting line. I shed a few tears, feeling sorry for myself.
It got worse as time went by. It should have occurred to me that practice would have helped me hit the ball. It didn’t. Instead I chose to pretend that I would never have to play baseball again. Of course, the sixth-grade PE teacher thought differently and before I knew it, I was standing at home plate with the foreign-feeling bat in my hand, futilely swinging again. But this time, some players who knew what they were doing and who had a competitive streak added to the horrible experience by taunting inexperienced batters like me.
“Are you stupid!” “Are you clumsy?” “Why do you have to be on our team?” Needless to say, there were not anti-bullying programs in those days. And needless to say, my dislike of baseball and softball was cemented in sixth grade. I don’t think I’ve touched a bat or baseball mitt since then.
I wasn’t much help when my boys were small. They had baseballs and gloves, but I never practiced with them. Just looking at the gear brought back bad memories. I was lucky—they preferred soccer, wrestling and football anyway.
But lately, I’ve been thinking it looks like it would be fun to play the less-intense T-ball or Parent Pitch. I’ve been to granddaughter RaeAnne’s Parent Pitch practice and to one game and it is really nice to see how patient the coaches are. Everyone gets a “Good try!” or “Way to go!” if they are indeed trying. Of course there is also quite a bit of “Pay attention out there!” and “Stop picking flowers!” and “Stop twirling around!”
But the kids—the Yankees— really look like they are having fun.
And then there is T-ball. I had never seen a T-ball game until last week when I had the immense pleasure of watching granddaughters Genevieve and AnnaBelle and grandson Carter play T-ball. They are fortunately all on the same team— the Turtles. Poor kids, the name alone makes me laugh.
I’m sure things will get better after they practice a few times, but the first practice this week was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It was like clown baseball—tiny clown baseball. I shouldn’t laugh because these 4-to-6-year-olds probably play as well as I did in fourth grade. But they sure don’t have the attention span.
Every batter gets to go to home plate, to hold the bat and to attempt to hit the ball off of the T. They get to swing as many times as they like. There is no pressure of three strikes and you’re out. When they do connect, the coach at home plate tries to get them to give him the bat and to run to first base. The majority of the batters just stand and stare at the kids crashing into one another on the field. Or they just watch the kids watching them.
When the home plate coach manages to pry the bat from their little hands, they still don’t notice the first base coach screaming, “Run to me! Run over here! Run to first! Run this way!”
Like the rule that lets the kids swing as many times as needed, they can take as long as they need to figure out that they are supposed to run to first base. It’s no big deal if they get tagged out. There is no score in T-ball. No competitive cousins calling crybaby. No snotty sixth graders insulting klutzy kids.
I love it. I think it works to teach the kids how to play the game and how to have fun doing it. You can tell the kids who are in their second year of T-ball. They do much better. They know to aim at the ball, not the T holding the ball. They drop the bat and run quickly to first. So there is hope that my grandkids will catch on and will not feel like klutzes when they move up to baseball where you strike out and scores are kept.
In the meantime, I’m really glad they have this time with T-ball. Go Turtles!
Baseball is ninety percent
mental. The other half is
physical.
Yogi Berra
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