September 19, 2021: Coming Out Party

What a day… yes, we’ll get to the Bears game eventually, but before that, I need to share what happened BEFORE the game, at my son’s baseball game on Sunday morning. You could say it was sort of a coming out party for him on the baseball field.

He’s been playing baseball since he was a toddler; as soon as he could stand, walk, run on his own, we were playing catch; he started swinging the bat soon after. We signed him up for instructional stuff when he was 3 and 4, and then at 5, he played in his first official league. He did well. At 6, he and his team dominated the league, going undefeated; although they technically didn’t keep track of wins and losses, I did. At 7, he and his buddies made the jump to the older league; it didn’t go well from a win loss perspective. The other teams were loaded with older kids; we didn’t win a game, but… we got much better; I couldn’t wait to get back on the field next year. Then COVID hit…. no league at 8, no league this year either at 9, until now. Signed him up for a 6 week fall league with 2 games per week; I was just so happy to get him back on the field.

They won their first game 7-3, and their second 2-1 in a walk off thriller I just talked about in the previous day’s blog. Sunday though… yeah, that was THE game. It felt like a long time coming… like I had waited to see this moment for my son for years… that moment when he was clearly the best kid on the field… where he dominated every aspect of the game… when I could dream a little bit for him… more than I already do. I don’t know what it was that just clicked… he got up at 630 in the morning, took a walk with me and the dog, had his regular bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but whatever it was, we need to bottle it up. OK, let’s get to the game.

We were playing a new team, one whose coach said to my wife and our fans, “ready to lose” today; he would be asking about my son playing travel ball for them before this game was over… haha. Anyways, we were the home team, and came up to bat in the bottom of the 1st trailing 1-0. Two of the first three kids got on base, bringing my boy up with 1 out. He hit a laser on the first pitch that split the right center field gap, and he was off. Because two of our coaches were at a birthday party this morning, I ended up coaching third base this game; talk about meant to be. I had tears in my eyes as I waved my son home, clearing the bases with a 3 run homer; I looked over and saw my wife cheering… I held it together. On his 2nd AB, he hit it just as hard into the outfield; the kid made a really nice play to stop it, holding him to a single. He would steal a base and come home to score on the next hit. On his 3rd AB, he topped off his day at the plate. Now I’ve pitched to my son plenty of times, seen him hit plenty of balls in practice and in games, but never has he hit a ball so far. He absolutely crushed this next ball, on the first pitch again, deep into right center field. This time, I told him to slow down as he rounded third base, easily making it home for a 2 run homer. 3-3, 2 HRs, 5 RBIs, 3 runs scored, and 1 SB; not a bad day at the office… but wait, there’s more…

He got to pitch the last 2 innings of the game; he had been asking the coach since his first outing to pitch again. I don’t know what got into him, but wow… he was laser focused, throwing strikes, and not slow either. He faced 6 kids in 2 innings striking them all out, 2 of the looking variety. He was pumping strikes in there; they couldn’t hit him. I was watching all this happen from center field, as I was asked by the coach to help set the defense too. I was enjoying every second of it… The final score was 13-1.

Yeah, so, I’m going to enjoy the hell out of this moment. Who knows what will come next on the baseball field, in the pool with the swim team, on the court once he starts playing basketball with his school, but I do know what I saw on this day. He was pretty happy too. After we went over his day again heading to the car, he said “Dad, I’m Ohtani”… haha. Well, yes, for one day you were; you were the MVP today… I hope he knows he’s my MVP every day. Proud of you buddy…