Being the dad of a little kid playing baseball can be nerve wracking sometimes. Now that Logan plays travel ball, there's a few risks involved. One of them is that he won't get to enjoy a normal childhood like everybody else. The other is that he might get too much baseball, get burned out, and decide he doesn't like it anymore.
On the "normal childhood" angle, I've got quite a few thoughts. The first is that a lot of "normal childhoods" involve huge stretches of absolute boredom. Logan is an active kid and during months between seasons where he might only have practice a couple times a week, he gets bored.
He's got other kids to play with, but kids being what they are, half the time they're playing. The other half, they're on each other's nerves. So, playing with the neighborhood kids is great... but doing it 7 days a week may not be.
If anything, I've seen him get burned out on playing with other kids in the neighborhood. Sitting at home on the couch, watching TV and saying that he just got into a disagreement. One boy in particular spends so much time with Logan that the two are like brothers. Just like real brothers in real life, sometimes they're together so much that they rub each other the wrong way and really need some time apart.
So, as far as unstructured free-play, I still think he's getting enough of that. Yeah, sometimes the baseball schedule gets pretty intense, with games and practices 4 or 5 days a week. However, that still means 2 or 3 days of just goofing off.
Second, "normal childhood" these days involves a lot of video game playing. I'm not a big fan and neither is Logan's mother. It's one thing to play video games if it's 20 degrees out or there's a huge thunderstorm. However, kids today play video games way too much. I'm actually proud that Logan has never really gotten into them much.
In a nation where obesity is at epidemic proportions, I'd rather see Logan out on a baseball field than sitting on a couch playing video games any day.
This is not to say that there isn't a tradeoff. Logan will almost certainly miss out on a few things because of his baseball schedule. So, yeah, he's going to lose something here and there, but by participating in baseball, he'll get to miss out on a lot of things that aren't necessarily good for him, too.
On balance, I think baseball is a positive experience for Logan. The more he does it, the more positive I think it is. In addition to the physical benefits, there are social benefits and self-esteem benefits as well. As an only child, he also needs chances to interact with people and understand the push-and-pull of social situations.
I did get concerned that travel baseball was just too much at this age. I just saw his team rather lethargic on Tuesday, in a loss to a team they should have beaten easily. I think a little of it was fatigue. They had just finished a gruelling tournament and over the previous 2 weeks, I think they only got about 4 days off from baseball.
It was at that point that I figured Logan might not want to play travel next year. If he wanted to play rec league, that was fine with me.
Also, I work quite a bit with Logan on various things. The team's activities were so numerous that I didn't have time to work with him on skills. Right now, he needs a lot of work at catcher and he needed a tiny bit of work on hitting.
However, I wasn't going to make him do baseball workouts with me on his nights off.
Thursday was a day-off. The coach also made it a voluntary activity to attend the Northview-Southview game on Friday. (Most of the kids on the travel team will eventually attend one of those High Schools.)
So, last night he got to go to his buddy's birthday party. (The same kid who he's like a brother with). Once he got home, though, he was sitting around bored.
He asked if I would go throw the ball with him in the front yard. Well, the answer is almost always "yes" if I can do it, but I was concerned. I said maybe he might want to take the day off and give his arm some rest. He looked genuinely dejected.
I tried to steer him towards maybe throwing a football. Still dejected. I asked if he REALLY wanted to throw a ball, because he didn't have to. He REALLY wanted to throw a baseball.
After a little throwing, he asked if we could get the catcher's gear out so he could work on playing catcher. Sure, no problem.
After that, he asked if we could go down in the basement and fire up the pitching machine. Again, no problem.
The kid just loves baseball. I asked if he wanted to go to the Northview-Southview game and emphasized that he didn't HAVE to. He didn't even hesitate. He wanted to go.
The kid just loves baseball and always has. For as long as he's been able to throw a ball, he's done it constantly. When he was a pre-schooler, he'd take a tennis ball or wiffle ball and throw it against the front door and practice catching it. Over, and over and over again. Every night. For an hour or two every session.
You can't make a person show that kind of interest. You can't manipulate them into it. It just has to be something they love.
So, as his Dad, I have to help him walk the fine line between nurturing a personal passion and not getting to where he's burned out. Honestly, this travel season has been intense so far. I think when it's over, though, he'll really miss it.
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