Mark Brown's Blog

I'll be the first to admit that I've never been a baseball fan at all.  My whole life I've never really cared about the sport at all.  I played Little League, Babe Ruth, but once I got into high school everything was about Football, so I ran track because it helped me with Football.  I just never understood how or why people liked Baseball so much.

 Then I had kids, 2 sons.  They both wanted to play Baseball last year, my youngest was to young to play yet, but my oldest son was 10 and played in the 10 and under league.  What an absolute blast to watch him play last year.  My wife and I really enjoyed and looked forward to watching him play.  So needless to say we were looking forward to this year.

 Saturday was opening day for the league.  My youngest is playing Tee Ball and my oldest is playing in the 12 and under league.  My youngest son's game was at 10 on Saturday morning.  We pulled into the parking lot a the baseball complex and the temp in my car reads 38f degrees.  We get to the right field, begin to warm up, and it starts SNOWING!   Most of the kids were loving it.  Game starts and we all had a blast, well, most of us did.  We lost, but it was still fun and my son had fun, which is really what counts.

Now, I'm going to rant a little bit.  All you parents out there, if you signed your kid up for a sport, you are making a commitment to the TEAM that your kid will play, even if conditions aren't perfect.  What are you teaching your kids if you let them whine and cry about the conditions then let them sit out of the game?  Your teaching them it's OK to let their team down just because they don't want to be a a bit uncomfortable.  This is not how you develop productive hardworking citizens.

I'll get off my pedistle now...back to Saturday's game.

My oldest son's game was at 12:15 on Saturday, so we run to grab a quick lunch, then head back to the now 42 degree ball fields.  The 12 and under games are scheduled to go 90 minutes or 7 innings, which ever comes first.  I've never seen one go 7 inning though.  The game starts, and it's a heck of a game, very close, good pitching, good hitting and good fielding.  My son hit a triple and then struck out.  They ultimately lost by 1 point, but what a game.  What fun it is to watch them play.

 I'm starting to see why Baseball is such a popular sport!