Indoor Baseball Practice

So, today?  It was 64 degrees.  In September.  In Texas.  It's unheard of.  Seriously.  And it was glorious!  It rained most of the day, so it was no surprise that the practice fields were closed due to soggy conditions.  Our coach called for an indoor team meeting instead.  At McDonald's.  In the PlayPlace.  I didn't even want to tell N because I knew what his reaction would be.  And, for the record, I was spot on.

When we got there, the coach announced N as the team captain.  He also said N would be helping in the dugout and calling the plays on the field.  You know, but no pressure.  He IS just a 12 year-old kid, after all.  He went through the plays and signs, repeatedly telling the boys how they were going to be sneaky and the signs were designed to trick the other teams who might have players who'd been on his teams before.  Like, if there's a "thumbs up," it doesn't mean steal, it means to stay put.  You know, because they won't pick up on that pretty quickly.  Sigh.

One of the other things on the docket for the team meeting was discussion about the Challengers games.  The Challengers are a group of special needs kids who want to play baseball.  Part of playing U12 baseball is the privilege of playing games with this team.  N was the only one at the meeting today who had played against them before (he's played against them for 2 seasons now), so the coach gave N the floor to tell the team what to expect.  What I didn't expect was for one of the boys to snort and say, "Seriously?"  He got death stares all around.  N told them the point was to have fun, that it was their privilege to give back to our community, and that it served as a way to get some extra fielding practice in while making the other teams' day.  Then the coach turned it over to some of the boys on our team who have special needs of their own.

Listen, I am absolutely not discounting dyslexia, because I know it can be extremely debilitating and totally mess with a person's self-confidence.  It's a legitimate problem and I fully believe that those who suffer from it are in need of help to get through it and overcome it.  HOWEVER, the kids on this particular team suffer from things like Cerebral Palsy or Down's  Syndrome.  They require help batting and running the bases and each of them have a caregiver out on the field with them when they're fielding.  It's entirely different.  And then, once the "heavy" stuff was over and the coach declared the meeting complete, three of N's teammates asked if they could go play on the playground.  N stared at me, dumbfounded, and said "We need to leave...NOW."  Because he's an 87 year-old man trapped in a 12 year-old's body.

The Challengers though?  It's something that I know needs to be discussed with kids and parents because some kids get nervous and uncomfortable with stuff like that, and what do we, as humans, tend to do when we're nervous or uncomfortable?  We laugh.

And these players and their families sure as heck don't deserve that. 

It makes me REALLY nervous for tomorrow.

Aubs