Here we are at the end of October and fall is in full swing. Leaves are falling off the trees. The smell of pumpkin spice is in the air. NFL and NBA seasons have started and MLB is ending theirs. Summer is officially over but before winter arrives, a World Series Champion must be crowned.

Two relatively mid-market teams, the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves, must decide who will wear the crown. I wonder if the Braves will have some name change talk thrown their way. They haven’t been on the big stage since 1999 and the world has changed since those days. I’m not sure if the Tomahawk Chop will be as accepted as it once was. Personally, I’ve never been an Atlanta Braves fan because they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates a few times, keeping them out of the big series in 1991 and 1992. Any who, that’s a different discussion. This is about the game of baseball and the joy it brought my family during the pandemic.

We began watching baseball fanatically earlier this year when my kids signed up for spring baseball in Ward 8. We were looking to get involved in something outside that could still be done while social distancing and keeping COVID-19 protocols. They kids said they wanted to play baseball. We went to a practice, and to my surprise, they had fun. Even my 4-year-old daughter was out there snagging balls and running the bases. It was fun, even with our masks on. A few days later the league commissioner asked me if I’d be willing, and able, to coach one of the teams for our league. There weren’t many volunteers, so I said yes. Only I don’t know much about coaching, let alone coaching a group of 7 to 10-year-olds. I wanna win too much to really teach them how to appreciate the game. Or so I thought.

We started our season bad, not terrible, just plain bad. Some of the kids hadn’t played before, some didn’t want to listen, some didn’t know how to listen. One kid only wanted to dance during every practice. We had to learn how to dance around the base path. We had to learn how to focus on one part of the game at a time, to listen to our teammates, coaches, and parents. They needed to learn how to pay attention to what was happening in the moment. We learned all that and to be honest, we got good at it. We went from playing badly, to being pretty good. We also looked pretty good too. One player made sure that she had her hair just right, within her hat, before taking the field, and within her helmet before batting. I knew we were doing something right when we got invited to a tournament. We played hard, stepped up, and only lost our games in the bottom of the ninth inning.

This season, we went from players having to go to the bathroom between every inning to only having to go during the seventh-inning stretch. To be honest, it was actually more of a dance break than a stretch. We had to get that dance in every time.

For those kids, the game of baseball isn’t about a championship series, it’s about creating a championship mindset. It was about kids playing together, reclaiming their summer during one of the strangest times of all of our lives. People are socially distant and becoming socially aware at the same time. The world has changed a lot since 1999. It’s changed a lot since 2013 and even more so since 2019. Yet some of our neighborhoods haven’t changed much at all, the same violence is still plaguing the same people. So these Saturday games, these Tuesday and Thursday practices, aren’t just a game, or a practice, but time away from chaos, to learn how to play games, and simply be kids.  

The kids showed me the game of baseball really is all about creating fun, having team dance battles and after game snacks. The after game snack turns a loss into a win in a minute.

Baseball is a great game. I’ll be watching the Houston Astros vs the Atlanta Baseball Team, showing the kids batting techniques, running techniques, and fielding techniques, and if we’re lucky we’ll see the winning team dance with the Commissioner’s Trophy.

Recommend If You Like is not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. Even sites owned by billionaires and millionaires have Patreons so please don’t hold that against us. And we’re paying all of our writers, photographers and graphic designers. So please consider our Patreon. If you can't afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It's free and we're asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.