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| SOFTBALL LINKS |
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Thanks For The Thankless Efforts
by Dave
Monday, June 15, 2009
I ran into a friend and neighbor of mine Sunday. He looked bad. His back was killing him. He was exhausted and wanted to go home to bed but he couldn't. He told me he had worked for 3 hours to get a field ready for his son's two hour long game of 14U travel baseball. This guy is a triathlete but no amount of running, cycling, and swimming could put him in good enough shape to work the fields this past weekend. He was not alone.
If I say it was wet Saturday, many in my area would laugh. It has been "wet" for weeks. We have been rained on at most tournaments. High school season was extremely compressed this year, thanks to the weather. The grass is doing great sans irrigation. Bugs are living in bug heaven. Carbon dioxide has been sequestered at record rates thanks to the out-of-control growth of brush and trees.
We were at a fastpitch tournament Saturday and knew that there was a decent possibility of rain beginning around 3:00 pm. Unfortunately, our last seeding game was scheduled for 3:30. After game 2, the girls did what tourney girls do and the parents ate lunch while sitting around watching the clouds build off in one direction. At about 2:30-45, the girls went to warm up while we kept vigil over the gathering storm clouds. As 3:30 approached, a few drops were felt, then a few more. Gradually the clouds slid over our heads and a steady rain began to fall just short of our scheduled start time.
The girls came back over and got beneath portable awnings. We watched while teams continued to warm up on outfield grass at 3 fields. Coaches with towels dried balls. [; Players threw soggy ones over each other's heads. Our girls stopped warming when they noticed umpires congregating beneath other portable awnings at and after the scheduled start times. We imagined that the forecast had changed for the worse and we waited to have our afternoon cancelled.
Some few of us checked forecasts on car radios and mobile phones. We reported back that most likely things were going to break up shortly and then the sun would come out. But we noticed a sheen forming on the fields as water began to build. Puddles began to grow in outfields. It wasn't looking good. As the rain continued to fall, perhaps harder as time wore on, eventually word came that we would cancel the remainder of the day and reconvene Sunday morning, early of course, to play one seeding game and then the elimination round.
The rain never ceased overnight. I suppose by 3:00 AM, it let up and then stopped. But by 4 or 5, the air continued to sweat. I could feel beeds of condensation form on my skin as I checked out the sky before loading up the cooler for what figured to be a long day. We packed up the car and headed for the fields about 6:15. When we arrived at the complex, we saw men standing around staring at what looked from afar like swimming pools filled with brown sand. The fields, the tournament, everything, was under water. The forecasts hadn't called for it but we received essentially the wringing out of a very damp atmosphere for about 12 hours overnight.
I don't know how much rain fell but it was a lot. There was no repairing these fields. You could have had one hundred or more human beings involved in the project. You could have shipped in bone dry clay and resurfaced the darn things. The ground was so wet, nothing could have made these fields playable. And nobody tried.
Instead, we were shipped to the "one good field" in town, probably the county, if not the state. There, no fewer than 7 men worked the entire thing as best they could. We played one game and then the remainder of the tournament was called. Oh well, you really cannot fight Mother Nature. Many tried but few succeeded.
Later that day, in early afternoon, the sun finally came out. I took one of my daughters out to work some pitches on a real field, if it had dried enough. Afterwards, we noted some baseball games at far off fields so we went to see what was going on. That's where I found my friend rubbing his back, calling pitches and watching his son play.
There were any number of baseball and softball events scheduled for this weekend in places all over a tri-state region which shared the rainfall. In most spots, no games were played. In a few, fields had good enough drainage to allow elbow (shoulder and back) grease enough to make them playable. I imagine that the same sort of thing I witnessed played itself out in many locations. Fathers and mothers worked rakes, emptied bags of quick-dry substance, dug holes in which to use shop vacs to draw out the water, etc. Parents who just wanted their kids to have the opportunity to play worked themselves into spasms of varying muscle groups to prepare fields in an effort to just get in a game or two.
There are no thanks for these hardworking folks. The kids don't overtly appreciate their efforts. They won't benefit in tangible ways far into the future just because they were able to play this weekend. Probably more parents of players like me wished they could have stayed in bed beyond the rooster's crowing Sunday. You just cannot look at a single day like yesterday and think, "gee aren't we lucky we got to play."
But the truth is, the kids did benefit. There is such limited time, though it doesn't always feel like it, for kids to get out and just play ball. My kid got to pitch 4 innings and while it was not a character builder from which she'll draw for years to come, she did get a little better for the experience. She learned something yesterday playing that one game. I don't know exactly what it is but she got something out of it. It may just barely be incremental. It may not matter much in the long run. But she did get something out of it. And that's really what parenting is all about.
On a moment to moment basis, it is difficult to identify what it is you have taught your kids. They'll never thank you for what you do teach them. Many times, you are fighting things bigger than yourself. Sometimes, no matter what you do, it doesn't do any good. Often, even if it does some good, it costs you more than you can spare. But you do it anyway because you want for your kids. You want them protected. You want them to get exercise. You want them to learn important life lessons. You want them to avoid drugs, bad grades, trouble with the police, trouble with other things, etc. So you put out.
You drive them to softball practice. You take them for extra help at school. You rearrange your life for your kids' benefit. You undertake a huge assortment of things you would rather not do, all for the benefit of someone who will probably never say thank you. But you do it because you care more than words can ever show. You do it because you are biologically and psychologically predisposed to do it.
So, here is your thanks. I know it isn't much. I know it doesn't begin to repay you for the degree of effort. But thanks, nonetheless. And, in closing, I would like to remind you that not everyone does what you do. You may see yourself as one of very many but that's just a perception. Not everyone got up yesterday morning before 10.
We may not often take notice but many parents could not care less what their kids have to do. They aren't willing to go out and rake mud, spread drying compound, get up before the dawn, drive all over the kingdom to tick-infested jungle encircled, uncomfortable places to provide a ball game or three. You did it. And your kids ultimately will benefit.
So, thanks. That's it.Labels: parenting
 
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