Nubze

When my son was six, I signed him up for Tee-ball. He expressed interest in baseball and liked to bat and catch. I had visions of my baseball loving (and, more importantly, playing) son becoming great at a sport and earning a college scholarship due to his prowess as a ball player. Yes, my father didn’t encourage me to play baseball and I was going to support my son’s desires no matter what.

That first inning was great. The boys were jumping after the ball, running around, and having a great time just being in motion, except, I didn’t see my son in the ruckus with the others. I scanned the outfield, and there sat my son playing with the little dirt mound left by a gopher. I wanted to yell, “get up and play the game,” but I refrained, as I saw the movie Parenthood too many times and I didn’t want to be that type of father. I tried to tell myself he is only six, and it Is more important for him to learn to love the game at this age. Attention to the game will come. At a minimum, I hoped, he will lose interest in dirt piles.

When he was eight, Spencer was in his third season of Little League. To my dismay, neither his attention nor love of the game increased over the past three years. At least he wasn’t sitting playing with gohper dirt (he gave that up this season), but now his favorite fielding activity was shuffling his feet around in the infield to make big dust clouds. While in the outfield he likes to dance. And, watch birds. Rarely did he even glance at the batter or the play. My dreams of him becoming a ball player faded to nothing.

I was conflicted. On one hand, he needed to be who he is. On the other, why couldn’t he at least show some interest in the game? Yes, I was afraid. Afraid my son would be no good at sports and become a nerd that withdraws from all sporting and social activities, suffers a life without friends, and on my death bed he will blame me for not pushing him more to play ball. Visions filled my head of Robert Duvall smacking my son in the head with a basketball (The Great Santini, if you are trying to identify the movie). Nope, I was not going to be that dad. I hoped.

Now nine years old, Spencer elected to skip Little League this season. I was hurt, dejected, and worried my son had become a quitter. I thought, now what do I do? How do I make him face his fears, learn to enjoy the game, and motivate him to take on a challenge without him feeling pressured by his unreasonable father? At a loss how to respond, my guts were tied up by my indecision for how to deal with my kid’s decision.

My father is visiting from Colorado, and in one of our conversions, we talked about Spencer and his aversion to sports. A smirk crossed my father’s lips. I became a little upset. “Why are you laughing about my wimpy son?” I asked indignantly.

“He’s just like you were,” my dad replied.

My mouth opened, but no words came out. I loved playing baseball as a child. I recalled spending hours in the summer just playing catch on our front lawn.

And then, my father laid out the bombshell: “You played one season of Little League, and that was it. You refused to sign up for another season. Weren’t very good, I guess. I tried to cajole you, and tell you how wonderful playing baseball was, and almost went as far as to bribe you to play, but you dug in your heals and that was that.”

I wanted to vehemently protest, but I searched my memories and knew he was right. I preferred the more unstructured play, and I really sucked on a ‘real’ team. I was always bored in right field. Who wants to stand in the summer sun for an hour afraid a ball might be hit in your direction?

“Did you hear that ding?” I asked my Dad.

“What ding?” He looked at me like he caught me doing something stupid, like when I was a child.

The bell going off in my head was the epiphany that, I trying to get my son to make up for my shortcoming when I was his age: a lesson in how to mess up your own kid.

At that moment I understood what Spencer was feeling about baseball. He wasn’t really any good, and he liked to play, but only if there was no score keeping or pressure to play as well as his peers. Like father, like son.

“So now what do I do, Dad?“

“How the hell should I know? After a lot of butting heads with you, I finally gave up and let you quit.” my father responded.

Great. At my age I understand the importance of sports. Lessons in perseverance, self-discipline, team work, fun, and physical exercise are all important aspects I don’t want my son to miss. He has to play some kind of sport.
This afternoon, I received an email for Nike Tennis Camp. Don’t know how they got my email address, but their targeted marketing worked. That’s it, I thought. Maybe tennis is Spencer’s game. I signed him up and look forward to camp starting in two weeks.

Proud of myself, I asked, “Hey Dad, did I like tennis when I was Spencer’s age?”

“Hated it,” he answered.