I can honestly say I had never been more nervous, more anxiously awaiting an event in my entire life. No, I’m not talking about my recent 50 mile run. I’m not going back to the day of my wedding, the arrival of my first child, not even my first hamburger after a 2-week trip to Japan several years ago. I was beside myself waiting for my son Jake’s first T-ball practice last week.
Jake has no idea the amount of pressure he is under to become a world-class athlete and at 4-years-old, this T-ball practice was his first dip in the Olympic-sized pool of dreams, my dreams. Don’t cry for Jake, he has yet to feel this pressure. It’s just that as an athlete myself, I always envisioned having children, coaching them in a variety of sports and basically living out my dreams through them as any red-blooded American dad does.
When my wife and I discovered that our first child was going to be a girl we were ecstatic. A girl hadn’t been born of an Overbay male in nearly 80 years! This little daddy’s girl would surely have a love of fast pitch softball, basketball and, well, we’d need to decide on whether or not she’d play tennis or run cross country. After all, I didn’t want to burn her out before she left the comforts of the womb! She arrived and grew into a wonderful young woman who is absolutely brilliant, can play the piano and clarinet like I only wished I could and while she gave soccer a go, wasn’t a big fan. I loved her just the same and figured there’d be an athlete, more specifically one who required copious amount of playing catch, down the road.
Then along came daughter number two. Once again, musical protégé, her artwork displayed on the walls of her school and in local art shows. She has a penchant for running like her old man. Absolutely zero interest in softball, we tried soccer and, well, I was never a big fan of soccer myself.
Two daughters in a row obviously meant that child number three would be a boy who would love all things sports, especially baseball. When she arrived you could tell she was light on her feet, which translated into quite a little gymnast and dancer. Meanwhile I’d lost my baseball glove and figured I may never need it again. I was OK with that. It actually took pressure off of me, a former baseball player, to produce a baseball playing offspring.
Then we were graced with a fourth child. By this time I figured it’d be easier (and cheaper, I can’t lie) to have another girl. So when Jake was born, the glove was brought down from the top of the closet and the countdown began. No pressure, at least not yet!
Every time the girls dressed Jake up, did his hair, invited him to play Littlest Pet Shop, or Polly Pockets, or even Barbie’s (I insisted at the very least that he was always Ken) I could sense my dreams of a future baseball Hall-of-Famer going down the tubes. Sure, we’d play basketball on his little hoop quite often, sometimes too often, but Jake was sure to let me know what color uniforms we were wearing and he was more interested in making sure we had water bottles and snacks ready than he was in playing the game.
When I told Jake I had signed him up for T-ball, the first thing he said was that we needed to go to the store. That’s my boy! What do you need son? A little eye black? Some of that bubble gum that comes in a pouch? Wristbands, batting gloves, a small nail file to hide in your glove to mix up your pitches? None of the above, Jake wanted to make sure he had pants that matched with his baseball shirt. Don’t get me wrong, the kid looked great on his first night, but even better, he could play! Sure, the 20 hours a day of practice didn’t hurt. The fact that he was instructed to sleep with his bat probably helped him feel more comfortable at the plate, but he was a player!
OK, so they were all pretty good, but the proud poppa in me darned near shed a tear when one of his errant throws went well over my head and plucked his mother in the shoulder. What an arm! And when it came time to run the bases after successfully hitting the ball, and not so much the tee, on his first at bat I couldn’t have been more proud than when he was willing to pull into home with a half slide, sure to get his baseball pants dirty, something his sisters definitely wouldn’t approve of.
0 comments:
Post a Comment