My oldest’s hiatus from baseball has taken an intermission. He was asked by another team whom he does not know to play for one more week in an upcoming tournament. After weeks of no ball, he found himself last night scrimmaging with them against an older team. What struck me is how small my son looked. He’s bigger than I am, as big as most of his friends, yet he was downright puny among these man-children. And he played like a child, like a boy I didn’t recognize. Nerves, mental vacation, rusty – I don’t know what it was, but it surely wasn’t pretty… As a rule, I never let my kids quit something once they start. But after the game, I asked him if he wanted to go forward with these people he doesn’t know, recognizing that he had to be embarrassed by his own performance…and he said he wanted to play. It’s what I secretly hoped to hear but wasn’t sure he was big enough to say.

My youngest gets this, without even knowing it…he suffered a season-ending and summer-changing injury on the mound. With a fellow teammate who wasn’t there, he had the following text exchange:

Connor: Did you hear what happened to me?
Friend: Yeah, that suxs.
Connor: Yep, but forget me. We (the team) are doing well…

Yep, there’s no “i” in team.

I live in the right place, where the old still remember and the new never forget, and they all are truly so Southernly sweet.

As with all art, soley depending on the viewer, it is good or it is not good. There is no objective measurement of art. There are as many conflicting views of what constitutes art as there are forms. You know the saying: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. It cannot be measured by success or money or admirers. And our definitions of art can change over time. Five years ago, I never would have considered a sport an art form, but when baseball’s played well, it is as beautiful to me as Michelangelo’s David in motion.

I ordered a couple of books on mental toughness, not for myself because I am, but for the boys to read. One of them is Mind Gym: An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence. I had them both read the first four chapters last night, and I won’t soon forget their response: “It’s the best book I’ve ever read” – hearty words from a 12 and 13-year old. Sometimes as parents we don’t know the right words to impart to our kids, or maybe because we’re parents we’re just heard less…So I don’t know that these books will solve their woes of late on the field, but I do know that they’re paying attention to the fact that sports are not just physical tests because until the head is right, the body never will be.

Working as a cop, we led many processions through the streets of my small town. I liked working as the lead car. Once all the traffic at the stoplights were secured, I would race ahead, pull over, and stand at attention, hands behind my back, head held high and give the family, friends and mourners the most dignified send-off I could. It’s a Southern thing, and it’s the least we tennis players and cops can do.

My oldest recently announced he didn’t want to pitch anymore. Of course it came on the heels of a defeat and was only true for half an hour or so. Still, I was shocked to hear those words from a boy who loves pitching more than life itself. Maybe experiences like Joba’s show him no one’s perfect, and no one ever will be. Relievers can’t always be a relief and 13-year-olds can’t always rule the world….

He worked feverishly. No batter had time to take a cleansing breath or maybe even get the bat where he wanted it before the pitch was hurled. He worked confidently. No matter what happened on the field behind him, he took little note and delivered the next pitch. Even when he balked a baserunner over, there was no emotion, no roll of the eyes, no register on the radar. Pure bulldog.

I don’t know what lies ahead for that 5’9″ phenom, but he’s a pitcher’s pitcher, a baseball player with more poise than most men twice his age. He showed me that size matters little. It’s the size of the fight that does.