Having a child play organized sports can be a trying time for a dad, and I'm not talking about just fretting over possible injury. You hope your child will be handle adversity. You hope that the teammates with more experience don't look upon your child as a liability or tease him for not playing like Cal Ripken. You hope your child gets a coach that won't give up on him because he doesn't play like Cal Ripken. You hope against hope that your child doesn't get stuck in the "players who play like Cal Ripken if he were a paralyzed quadruple amputee with scoliosis" position...otherwise known as Right Field.

Li'l Heavyarms played right field.

Heavyarms is a far cry from an actual athlete, but keeping in mind the old adage "Those who can, do. Those who can't…COACH," I had plenty of baseball tidbits to offer him. Things like:
"Keep your head in there!"
"Open your stance up!"
"Ready position!"
"Keep the ball in front of you!"
"Get your glove up!"
"Keep your eye on the ball!"

Parents/pseudo-coaches don't realize that most of those phrases are about as meaningful to a 7-year old as dissertation on quantum mechanics, but we helpfully yell them at our children during a game anyway. I guess it’s sort of like asking someone "How're you doin'?" You don't really care, you just say it because everybody’s sayin' it.

Strangely, my son didn't pick up on Baseball Basics during his first game. He was still asking what a force out was after his second game. I was still constantly reminding him to back up throws to first after his third game.

ANECDOTE: My family and I attended a professional baseball game during the season, and without fail my wife would say "oh, oh, oh!" on every single throw to first base. After a while, she said, "Man, they never miss a throw to first do they?" "No," I replied, "Professional baseball isn't like little league. Not every throw to first base is an exciting play." Parents of little leaguers will know what I’m talking about.

"Dad, can he spend the night with us?" my son asked.

I guess baseball isn't as important to a 7-year old.

The second close call came against the team they were (at the time) tied with for first place. They were losing 11-3 with two outs at the bottom of the third inning when the game was called for weather. One more out and the game would have been official. When the game was rescheduled our team managed to score 13 runs while holding the opposition to only 4. My son was hitless in three at bats, and as we left the field he was sad. "What's wrong, you guys won?" "Yeah, but I didn't get a hit." "So? You would have gotten on base against any other team in the league (this was true, their third and first basemen were unbelievably good.) And what's more, even though you got thrown out, you drove home a run." "Yeah, that's true." "And you guys won by one run." "I guess so." "So you might even say that you drove in the winning run." "Hey, that's true! Can I have a milkshake?"

Showing that even an apparent failure can sometimes be viewed as beneficial makes things go down a little bit easier.

Especially when combined with a milkshake.