The Agony and the Ecstasy

    
      It's been a long baseball season.  A long, aching baseball season.  I wasn't prepared for the stress on my heart when I let Elijah play spring ball.  In my past life, activities I was involved in had BIG, once, or twice-a-year competitions that caused the sickly, nervous stomach. The rest of the year was practice, practice, practice for that one event that held all the marbles.  Baseball, not at all the same.  And of course I knew that but I was certainly a rookie parent this season.  After only 4 wins and 9, "are you kidding, again?!" losses, I have learned a little about myself.  I'm not so good at watching these young boys, who work so hard and do so well at practice, get on the field and either A) lose by 1 run and a few bad calls, B) start strong, lose confidence, freeze up and lose at the end, or C) get creamed from the get-go.  I think of the pressure put on these little men to achieve, to live up to their potential, and to, for goodness sakes, just let go when a mistake is made.  That's Elijah -- he was consistently good at his position and at the bat, but one error would send his confidence to tears, tears he would try hiding at the end of the game while he buried his head in my side.
    I wanted each boy to have success, to be boosted up, that when they didn't, and I saw their face fall, or heard a parent nearby disappointed for them, not in them, just for them, I just nearly had to walk away from the stands.  And I also learned I'm a parent who gets easily worked up at bad calls.  I never wanted to be someone who yelled, "Come on, ump! What are you doing!?" at a game, so again, I'm learning to just walk away, watch from a distance.  I'm just not cut out for this every week. 
   So, meeting at the field for our last regular game against The Mets, a 3rd place team, you can imagine we were all ready to cheer on our Yankees, but prepared for the worse.  We'd just had some pretty rough games where our defense was awesome, but there was no power at the bats, so a few nights before, they spent an entire practice with the machine.  Coach even told them not to bring a glove.  
   Somehow, that batting practice paid off.  At this last game, our defense was on fire - and every kid from the top of the line-up to the end of the line-up was hitting the ball.  Wow.  It was fun, really fun, and once we got at least 5 runs ahead, there was no icky stomach, no stressed heart. If I could have bottled the coaches joy, the parents' giddiness, and the boys' pride, I would. There is something to be said about winning, or watching your child win.  You feel good for them. 
   And of course, there is something to be said about losing, because we all know the moral to the story.  Without those 9 losses, this 1 win would not have carried the weight it did, the joy, the ecstasy.