In His Face!

It is difficult raising kids. There are so many variables you and they have to deal with that it becomes difficult to know what is the best path to take at times. When I was growing up, my parents always took the side of the teacher or the authority figure when there was a conflict between that person and me. Some would say that was not fair, because the teacher could be wrong. That’s true, but what my parents were conveying was the person may be wrong, but I was still to respect the position that person holds and learn how to work through the problem and not resort to blaming.

We encountered that problem when our daughter was in elementary school. She would complain that the teacher was always fussing at her for talking when she was not talking. Her class friends even supported our daughter. We encouraged her to talk with the teacher and try to work the problem out. It was not until later that we discovered this particular teacher, who was nearing the end of her teaching career, was confusing my daughter with another classmate. She repeatedly did it while we were attending a parent-teacher meeting one night. However, our daughter never lost respect for the teacher position, even though this teacher was in error.

Our son, Joe, was an outstanding baseball player all through the Little League system. He consistently performed at high levels in fielding, hitting, team leadership and over all performance. All his coaches and volunteers who worked with the teams he played for commented on what a fine and talented young man he was. We were understandably proud of him in this area of his life.

But, when he entered high school, his coach not only did not encourage him, it seemed that he was trying to make Joe quit the team. I had watched my son play for nine years and had at times been one of the assistant coaches on his teams. Not only that, virtually every one of the coaches for the Little League teams fought to get him on their team each year. Then biased as I may be toward him, I was a high school and college letterman in baseball and was good enough to get a minor league offer and I knew in my heart that he had the talent to play as a freshman in high school.

Often, I would go into his room at night before he went to sleep and sit on the floor and talk with him. I learned that I needed to know what was going on in the heads of my kids and made it a practice to go in at night and let them talk. I did not make any judgments about what they said because it was important to know where they were. There were other times to scold, correct or give advice, but in the nighttime talks I only gave advice when they asked for it.

At the first game of the season, the coach let everyone on the team play a little except Joe. He would tell me how this player got in the game or how another boy would make several errors, but coach would leave him in the game, but Joe never even got into the game.

He would come home from practice with his lips dragging the ground, he was so discouraged and down. We’d sit and talk at night and I would encourage him to keep practicing and be ready when the time came. I hurt for my son because he wasn’t getting any encouragement from the coach, only criticism and taunts.

In one game, Joe got to go in and at shortstop. That was his usual position in Little League and he had always been outstanding. We were at the game and happy to see him get into the game. The first batter up hit a low inside pitch that was a screamer at Joe. It hit at his feet but had a back spin generated by the hard chopping swing of the batter, causing the ball skid instead of bouncing. Joe, nor most any other college level and certainly no high school level player, could anticipate that kind of hit, and the ball got by him. The coach called time and yelled from the dugout to Joe, “Boy, get in this dugout!” I had a tough time controlling my anger at that day. After the game, Joe was understandably down.

That night we talked about the incident and I told Joe, “Some people don’t have good people and management skills. But, your time is going to come and you need to be ready to perform when it comes. Success happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

There were other incidents that occurred and each time Joe seemed to be lower. All through his Little League career he was the most up kid I knew. Happy, joking always ready to jump into any activity in which his teammates were involved. Now, he seemed to want to stay by himself more and more and that concerned me.

It had gotten to the point after one incident I ask Joe, “Do you want me to take care of this for you?”

I really wanted him to say yes, because I could have taken care of it in a New York minute. Coach was a little bigger than me, but I still hit the punching bag and skipped rope for 30-45 minutes virtually everyday. I was solid and had a right jab that was like a mule kick. I would have taken his head off, because like Muhammad Ali said, “He can run, but he can’t hide.”

But Joe replied that I had told him to take care of it and he was going to take care of it. I suggested that maybe he should talk with the coach when something like this happens again.

“Just confront him and say, ‘Coach, what to you want me to do? How can I do what you want me to do?”

Three days later, the opportunity came when again; he was not allowed to get into a game. After that game and the other players had left, he confronted the coach with the questions I had suggested. When he got home, he was lower than a snake’s belly. I tried to pick him up by being positive and upbeat.

“How are you doing, Joe?” I asked.
“Terrible,” was the one word response.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I asked Coach what did I have to do to get in a game and he said if I didn’t like the way he coached, I could quit,” came Joe’s flat response.

My anger boiled and we talked a long time that night. To be honest, I was running out of positive encouragement. I knew my son would break through this sooner or later, but I was beginning to wonder how late was later.

I’ve always heard it’s darkest before the dawn and I believe that to be true. But, I didn’t realize how quickly the dawn comes. Just two days later, Joe had a game and I was there. I had decided I would be at all his games no matter when or where they were. I wanted to be there because I knew sooner or later he would break out, because I was confident he had the talent and the perseverance and I wanted to share that with him. But I also wanted to be there because if I ever thought the pressure had gotten too heavy, I wanted to be in a position that I could step in and take care of the situation.

When the game started, I was surprised to see Joe at shortstop. I was on pins and needles hoping and praying he did not make any major mistakes or that Coach did not for whatever perverse reason jerk him out in an embarrassing situation. In the first inning he handled two ground balls and threw perfectly strikes for the put out. In the bottom of the inning, he was the fifth batter. There were two out and a runner on first and third. With the count at two and two, he hit a hard grounder just off the second base bag. The second baseman made a spectacular diving grab and flipped it to the shortstop covering second for the force out to end the inning. I held my breath to see if Joe came back on the field or if Coach would pull him. He came back out. His next at bat, he came to the plate with one on second, and two out. On the second pitch, he hit a Texas leaguer over the infield and scored the runner at second. On his next at bat he hit one off the fence for a double and his next time he hit a double down the left field line. The game went into extra innings tied at 4 to 4.

His last at bat, there were two runners on base with one out. The first pitch was low and outside for a ball. The second pitch was in the same place. Coach gave him the take sign and the pitch was in the heart of the strike zone for strike one. Coach gave him the take sign again and again the ball was drilled in the middle of the plate. The take sign came off and he was given the green light to swing away, but the ball was again low and outside. Joe stepped back from the plate, knocked the non-existent dirt from his cleats and looking as confident as a McGwire, Bonds or Sosa, checked over to Coach to see what the sign was. Coach looked back, shrugged his shoulders and turned up his hands as if to say, “Don’t ask me. You got the bat, use it!”

Joe, turned back to the plate, squared his shoulders and swung the bat a couple of times before bringing it to the ready position. He could not have custom ordered a better pitch. It was a fastball about belt high on the outside part of the plate. I was already on my feet, arms with clenched fist raised before the ball reached the plate as Joe extended his arms and swung. The ball was still climbing when it cleared the scoreboard scoring two runs and winning the game. Joe had gone 4 for 5 today.

I waited outside the locker room for Joe to come out. He was one of the last to emerge and when he did, simply walked over to me gave me a high five and said, “In his face!”