June 29, 2019: The Investment

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I always like the phrase “paying their dues”; we’ve seen it many times with our teams over the years. The Bears losing to the Niners before their Super Bowl run. The Bulls losing to the Pistons year after year before their 6 titled dynasty. The Blackhawks getting pasted by the Red Wings before their Cup run. The Cubs getting swept by the Mets before their World Series. Yes, it’s part of the process. I’ve seen it in my personal experience as well. From last to 4th to 2nd to 1st, was the championship runway for my first baseball title. You have to pay your dues; it’s like an investment. Well, on Saturday, we made a big deposit of dues. I can only hope that we learn a lot from the investment made on this day, losing 20-1 to the first place team in our league.

It was picture day. The team we were playing was before us in line. One of their kids told one of our kids, that they haven’t lost a game all year. I overheard it, so I had to step in. “Oh yeah? Well, we haven’t won a game all year! How you like that?” He said that was pretty sad. We walked away. Yes it was the undefeated vs the winless in this matchup. I knew they were the best team in the league, I just didn’t know there was that big a difference between them and all the other teams in the league.

We had been building some momentum. With our last 2 losses being 6-5 & 6-4, I had hope; there was light at the end of the tunnel, as our first victory was almost in our grasp. Well, we had a reality check, and participated in the first slaughter rule game of our season in a 20-1 blowout in 4 innings. Yes, it was as ugly as the score indicates; this would be one of those game tapes that you just toss. But, I’m going to pull some silver lining out of it anyways…

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Our kids hit the ball; thing was, they have the best defense in the league. Their kids hit the ball; they hit it like I haven’t seen all season. There were actually multiple legit fly balls to our outfield; before this game our kids hadn’t seen a fly ball. So you can imagine how that went… I’ll only share one story, of a ball that was crushed 20 feet over one of our smallest kid’s head. He ran it down, and had to run it halfway back in order to make a throw to the infield. He did, it didn’t make it, and as our SS went out to grab it, he slipped and fell. Yes, it was kind of like that.

We did have a couple nice plays on defense; my son was involved in half of those. I was pumped up for those… more so than normal, trying to keep the kids encouraged. When it came to kids pitch, I threw my son out there. I know he’s pitching good because the kids are hitting it; these kids really hit it. Still, I was proud of my newly minted 7 year old out there facing the best 9 year olds (and probably some newly minted 10 year olds) with no fear. Yes, they batted around, and yes, I had to meet him halfway from the mound to the dugout after the inning was over, as he buried his head in my ribs, crying. I told him to trust me; “you did great buddy”. Maybe you think how could I sugar coat this disaster? Well, it’s back to paying those dues, you know?

This team had the most keepers in the league, with many of these kids playing together for multiple years. We have the youngest team in the league, with some kids who haven’t played organized baseball until this year. It’s not a surprise what the result was. Yet, our kids saw what they could be in a couple years. They got the experience of getting their butts beat in. My son got the experience of facing the best at his young age. It only goes up from here boys… well, after the next couple games against this same team. Surely, it won’t be as bad as this one. But you know what? If it is, so be it; more dues, bigger investment, just waiting for that day to collect. Until next time…

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