FanPost

"Aid And Beltre" + Felix 4Eva -- Baseball Musings with K and O

The Beltre-Felix friendship is a thing of legend in my house. At least as far as O is concerned. He’s been obsessed with their on-field teasing since he was four and thought Beltre’s name was Aid And Beltre, and who may have actually been two people (brothers) in his mind.

If you ask O who Adrian Beltre is, he says, "He’s a Texas Ranger player... and he’s Felix’s friend." Big grin on his face.

Seeing two rival team members have such a convivial relationship on the field during a game fascinates him. He loves that they’re so goofy together and looks forward to Rangers-Mariners series.

(Please hold, I lost my train of thought. Seager just hit a HR and O got excited. He knows the HR count for the whole team, I think. I don’t know. But every time someone knocks one out, O knows how many that player has total on the year.)

Back to writing.

As a parent, I love love love that two grown men, Felix and Beltre, do this unabashedly. I want O, as a player, to know that it is a game, it’s supposed to be fun, and that personal relationships are far more important than winning.

I want all the kids on my little league team to feel this way. Which is why I don’t tolerate things like heavy sighing when someone’s taking a while to get a hit or yelling out how many strikes a kid has. Maybe it’s because I’m from Seattle, but I think 7-year-old dudes can wait until they’re older to be jerks to each other. So, starting this week, I’m giving public recognition to the kids who are encouraging to their teammates and I’m going to give them first choice at what position they want to play in the first game. We’ll see how that works.

Competition is healthy, I don’t want to take that away. Not everyone wins, not everyone’s the best, competition is a motivator and how people become great at whatever their passion is. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and be a decent human being to those you compete against.

My team has only had five practices, but one was rainy and only three kids showed up and this week many of the team was gone for spring break. Next week, we start games. Now, this is A-ball, coach pitch, and we’re in a league that treats this level as strictly instructional, even the games. However, once you define something as a competition, a person’s relationship to the thing changes. We’re taught (or maybe it’s innate, I’m no biologist. Or sociologist. Or psychologist. Just...I’m not sciency, ok?) that the goal of competition is winning. But even if we’re not keeping score, all the kids know how many runs have scored, who’s struck out, who hasn’t caught the pop-ups, who can’t throw accurately, and who can.

How can I encourage them to encourage each other? 'Cause it's gotta come from their peers, not just the weird mom-lady that's coaching. How can I instill in them that half the magic of the game is the camaraderie and chemistry of the team?

Maybe I’ll just post this photo in our dugout.