God and baseball

I'm hoping that everyone who reads this post is familiar with one of the great baseball movies "For The Love Of The Game". One of my all time favorite parts of the movie, is when Billy Chapel is on the mound, pitching the game of his life. All goes quiet, and he begins to talk to God, saying something to the effects of "God, I did promise that I would never be one of those guys that involves you in this game......but if you could please take away this pain in my arm for the next few innings I would be eternally grateful..." That probably mis-quoted quote springboards what I have to discuss next: Is it OK, or not OK to "involve God" in your game? Do God and baseball mix.....mix and match....or are they two very seperate things?
My first clash between the two came when a team we were invited to play on practised when we wanted to be at church......so the choice had to be made: church or baseball.....we were on the fence for a while, then rec ball schedule took over, and the "other team" took a back-seat to both church and rec-ball......so I suppose that was a victory for God and church.
The next time it came up, was during tense times watching my nine year old play. As one who advocates praying about EVERYTHING, I of course found myself wanting to turn to prayer when things weren't going well in a game......but then began questioning my own ethics!!!! Was it really OK to pray that my son's team would play better.....because wouldn't that be also praying AGAINST another child's sucess...which would be really mean?
At this point I found myself developing my own little list of what I felt was acceptable or NOT when I was saying these game-time prayers......Praying for positive experiences was OK, praying for the boys to win OR LOOSE gracefully was OK, praying that the boys would use the skills they had learned or put into practise a past lesson was OK.......definately NOT OK to pray for anyone to drop the ball....or miss a hit.....or strike out........MOST DEFINATELY NOT OK to curse the umprire, even in the case of a bad call........Not to sure when it came to praying for the opposing team....or the opposing team's Moms.....(ONLY JOKING FOLKS).
Before I sign off here, I feel the need to make a footnote - I definately, absolutely, whole heartedly, completely and utterly believe that God forgives you for missing church when you are playing baseball - the first paragraph might make it sound like that's not my belief, but in a nutshell here it is: I think that if you are a church-goer, and a regular baseball practise clashes with your time of worship, either you need to find a new time to worship or a new time to practise......however if you are in a tournament one weekend that means missing church, I really think that God will forgive you.....some hard-core hell-fire-and-brimstone-types may disagree here, and may point out that there's no scriptural refference that says "play ball!", but seriously guys, there are plenty of proverbs that talk about smiles on faces being good medicine and other such wisdom, and for this reason I stand behind my belief that God will not be mad at you for missing church once or twice due to baseball related matters.

P.S.
 Staying home to watch the yankee game however, I thinnk crosses the line.....DVR was created in order for you to never have this excuse for missing church!

Passing the Baseball Torch | MomsTeam

Passing the Baseball Torch MomsTeam

What do baseball young players do in their off season?

This post has to start with a disclaimer : I am quite willing to accept that my boys think in different ways to your average child! Their baseball-obsession is at times completely alien to the general population.....I realise this, and hope that this post either entertains it's readers, or that MAYBE I find some other people in our zip-code that understand what I am talking about!

SO...the question of the day is.....What do young baseball players do in their "off-season"?

Let me first explain a little : My oldest son regards the summer months as his "off-season" - at this time, he is NOT enroled in baseball, and does not have an official baseball team that he is a part of. Interestingly enough, he also does not want to be involved in baseball camp either.....it doesn't work for him that you could be "doing baseball", when it is supposed to be your "off-season". With that being said, both him and his brother find a way to play baseball just about everywhere they are :

Trip to the beach : "wave-ball", where they were practise swinging at waves
BBQ at the bay : "bubble baseball" - a complicated arrangement where someone was blowing bubbles, and the other on was somehow hitting or catching them....
Backyard : a thousand combinations of pitching/catching/throwing/swinging/hitting.....and our yard is only a franction bigger than a postage stamp....
Bedtime : For the five or so minutes they are allowed to talk before sleeping, they discuss MLB players, and
how well they play, what their strengths and weaknesses are, who deserved a spot in the all star team, who the strongest players of each position are...
Any down-time where there's grass: Short toss/long toss/ practising fielding/pop flies.
Ipod : baseball apps, and baseball trivia apps
TV: MLB network, MLB games, Baseball tonight - at age 8 the oldest one was able to work the DVR and schedule recordings for Prime 9, hotstove, baseball tonight and other baseball shows he was unable to stay up and watch, first thing in the morning, that's what he's watching.

As you can imagine from reading this list, it's very rare that what we're doing does NOT involve baseball, but on those rare occassion when it doesn't......well......being a child development proffessional means that in my regular job, I am paid to design a program where I set activities for young children to develop certain skills - fine motor, gross motor, social skills etc, the list goes on. As the baseballmomster, I apply my child development training to the world of baseball....

 A trip to the park is not only fun - the gross motor skills used in their "play" are also beneficial in their baseball game - when the boys play on this particular play structure, and hold onto the moving handle, their upper body strength and shoulders are being worked on, which during baseball season will be assist in greater throwing and hitting distance.

Other play equpiment too seves similar purposes - climbing walls are EXCELLENT for both upper and lower body strength, added to which the climber really needs to tune into how to control his body as a whole in order to best accomplish his climb. Translated into baseball skills, a player who can finely control his actions can become more accurate in his throwing, and is able to fine tune his stance/swing or pitching motion as his coach directs.  

Swings work on the legs muscles and the balance, other equpiment needs co-opperation with others, and teamwork in order for it to work correctly. Other park games require co-ordination and accuracy - frisbee, bocce ball, throwing a football - all these encourage transferable skills to baseball, and add a well-rounded component to all young sports players. Riding bikes and scooters are great cardio, swimming or just PLAYING in the pool is great for over-all fitness.

And who could forget....the importance of SHOUTING....gotta be able to call out those plays, right?!

Not to be discounted also, is ample time for watching games, both live and on TV - the "big people" example for young players is HUGE. Watching, observing, soaking in all of the skills, the game-situations, the choices, the good and the bad, and being able to have fun discussing it with Dad or Mom or another significant person - these are all another building block in that baseball-wall! At young ages especially, kids are like little sponges, and if they are WANTING to soak up something, and hungry for more knowledge in a certain area - FEED IT!

I wish everyone reading this post a blessed, restful and fun summer - I would love to hear from anyone else who has any similar tales of baseball obsessions while out-and-about!

When all is said and done

Somehow, the season is over.

Depending on your experience, this could be that you just lost your play-off game, your team finished it's final tournament of the summer, or that All-Stars is over. And again, depending on your experience this year you could be in a massive sense of relief that now life can return to "normal", perhaps you are in a state of shock that the boys didn't win the whole thing, or maybe you are in a baseball-form of the grieving process, and just missing all the comeradery, shared moments and joyous victories!

It is interesting to observe the different reactions of both parents and children during the close of baseball season. Personally, I feel a combination of sadness (knowing we will now spend less time with all the baseball-buddies), relief (LESS LAUNDRY), and the coulda-woulda-shouldas. It most definately seems to be a more complicated process, the further "into-it" all you have been.

Comparing my own experiences from this year to last is VASTLY different. This year, the friendships, the attitudes and the way the team worked together was a far cry from the previous year. Although people we equally as "nice", something seemed to click this year in a way it did not last year. Therefore, when our team didn't last too long in last year's tournaments, it was absolutely no big deal - fun while it lasted, but ready to be done. This year, the feeling of that last loss was rather emotional, and before I was even leaving the field I was starting the mental countdown to winter-ball. The car ride home was filled with reflections....could we have practised less and won more? Did we work on the right things with the boys? Were we just all tired, and if we were NOT tired, could it have gone better? Or maybe it was just time to be done....maybe the boys were all just....DONE....so it was the right timing.......you must bear in mind as you read this - this was all ADULT conversation. My sons in the back were relatively quiet........and when finally the time for my all-star to voice his opnion came, he says to me....."Mom, now I can REALLY start my summer!". There was no hint of devastation in his voice, no tears or hidden tears were evident, and in fact he didnt' seem sad in the slightest. As I paused to take in his statement I really looked at him: his tired face, the thumb-in-mouth, the streaked eye-black that really highlighted the bags under his eyes. Bless him, my son had taken this experience to a whole new level - not only had he physically put in all the practises, extra practises and his own little work-outs in our pint-size backyard, but he also thinks, over-thinks and does more mental-aerobics over the game than most kids his age. Much as he had LOVED his baseball season, the intensity of All Stars impacted him significantly, and for him, the knowledge that it's all over, equals freedom to get back to being a kid-who-loves-baseball for the summer! He too is counting down until winter ball, but for now, he's released from all the pressure, and able to watch, play-for-fun, conjure up his own work-outs and practises at his own pace and his own schedule, make up games with his baseball cards, win the world series on the Xbox and of course coach his brother to his heart's content!