Baseball: Go Collin!

I saw my oldest son play a baseball game for the first time this week. Youngest kid on the team. Coach asked him to pitch. He was excited. I was nervous. All the other kids had been playing ball for a couple of years. This was Collin's first game ever. I wasn't even sure he knew the rules of the game. Coach's kid opened the game. Third inning Collin stepped onto the mound.

He began to warm up. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The pitches were coming in hard and fast right over the plate. I asked Merritt: Is this really our kid? Where did he learn how to pitch like that? And I started to get a little teary-eyed. Another parent walked over to me and asked: Where did Collin learn how to pitch like that? I said: I don't know. In the three innings that he pitched, he only walked two players. Needless to say his team won the game.

Every time Collin got off the mound at the end of an inning, there was no smile and no celebration. His teammates would cheer him and put their arm around him. But Collin remained serious and focused, like he had a job that needed doing. I was impressed by his maturity.

That night, he came home and we were all so proud of him. But he headed to the back yard and pitched into the fence over and over again until it was too dark to see. It's like this little boy had suddenly found what he was born to do. I watched him fall in love with the game that night.

When I went to tuck him into bed, he was wearing his baseball cap and had his baseball in his hand. I said: Are you going to sleep with that? He said: Yeah, mom. I gave him a kiss and he closed his eyes and went to sleep, baseball in hand. It's a day I'll never forget.