Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Rise Of The Machine

By the time this week is through Adam will have had 3 baseball practices with two different teams. He started the week out on the west coast as a San Fran Giant and will end the week on the other coast as an Atlanta Brave. Apparently there was a mix up and his first team was a T-Ball team. We quickly realized the mistake and was told we could choose: T-Ball with the younger kids or Machine Pitch with kids his age. There would be some 6 year olds on his T-Ball team, but nobody he really knew. There would be some 7 year olds on the Machine team, some he may not know. At T-Ball he would be guaranteed a place as the star of the show. After just a few minutes it was clear he could run faster, hit further, dig out grounders better than all the rest. At Machine Pitch he might not be the cream of the crop. At T-Ball he might appear as if he were a refugee who hopped aboard a spare tire and floated his way across the Atlantic seeking political asylum from the terrors of Fidel's Cuba. At Machine Pitch he might simply be a fairly good 6 year old that has a ton of potential but has to try just as hard at the rest.

Torn we left the decision up to him...actually that's not what happened. What really happened was we decided to let him be the star of the San Fran Giants never knowing he what may have been had that pesky paperwork not have gotten mixed up. Then at the last minute as we were leaving the ballpark and I saw his other friends at Machine Pitch getting ready to face new challenges, learn new techniques, learning just how good they can be if given the chance...I blurted out his choices. T-Ball or Machine. This caught Mandy completely off guard something I am still paying the price for, but begrudgingly she agreed....if we never give him the chance to be something more all we are doing is setting him up for a life of always playing it safe.

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