Are We Having Fun Yet?
Summers are mostly consumed with baseball for my family. Both of my sons play Little League and also on local tournament teams. I have helped coach with several of their teams over the years. Baseball is an interesting game to me – it is a team sport and an individual sport at the same time. No teammate can really help the pitcher or batter, but yet defense is clearly dependent on a team. And when you are 10 or 12 years old it is pretty easy to put pressure on yourself on the pitcher’s mound or in the batter’s box. One of my favorite encouragements from coaches (of which I have done as well) is, "Have fun out there, kid." During one game this year I wondered what that actually meant. There is the pitcher, usually struggling, out there on the mound alone. The pressure of the moment has usually caused the player to over-think, aim the ball and most often, not have the best result. Moving from that point to “fun” is a hard place to get (if you don't think so, trying &qu