It’s baseball time of year, here…and I am happy! Not because I love watching major league baseball, or college baseball, or professional baseball…No, it’s because I love watching kids learn to love the art of playing baseball. My husband and I are on our local Little League board and opening day was yesterday. Not only was it a blast–hey, after all there were 6 exhibition games! But it was also fun to watch all those kids get excited about playing–and hey, even watching other kids play baseball.
My husband coaches one of the “Major League” teams. These boys can be so hard on themselves if they make a mistake. He has been working on making the game fun again for these boys. Every practice he asks them “Do you want to have fun, or do you want to win the pennant?” The funny thing is, they always ask him what he means by having fun. He tells them he wants to make the games exciting for them and the spectators. He tells them by fun he means if they walk to first base on a ball, he wants them to run and he will have them immediately steal second base. If they get called out because of it, he wants them to laugh because they tried something kinda exciting–and anyway, the coach called the play–it was his fault they got called out.
You know what? The boys have decided they want to have fun. And you know what I think? I think that by having fun, they might actually win the pennant….
