Play For Him

J recently made the varsity baseball team at his school and is poised for his junior season.  For some reason, this season has me more sentimental than usual.  Perhaps because I know J only has two school seasons and two TP summers left before he hopefully makes the next step in his baseball career, partially fulfilling a dream he's had since he was tiny.  To be a ball player.  He's worked so hard to get to this point that I think he sometimes forgets some of the memories that have accumulated over the years.  I haven't forgotten a one.  I thought it would be nice, at the start of this all important junior season, to look back at J's baseball career to this point.  To share some of my favorite moments along this journey that has both the possibility of being over in a blink or taking a whole new direction that J dreams of.

J was born with a love for baseball.  Or so it seems.  I suppose it's really more accurate to say my dad nurtured that love from the cradle.  I have fond memories of J propped in my dad's lap as a baby watching the Yankees on TV.  Of my dad taking him to his first minor league game when he was about two years old and to his first Yankee game by the time he was 5.  When he was three, my dad couldn't wait any longer to get him playing and we signed him up for a little team at the Y.  They played for an hour every Sat, a half hour of practice, followed by a half hour game.  I don't think my dad could have been prouder had we been in a major league ball park somewhere.  Not too long after that J told me for the first time, "Mommy, I'm going to be a baseball player when I grow up."

Next came the Little League years.  Those were years that had too many good times to count.  For my dad and J those years are the ones that cemented the bond they share over baseball.  Every spring brought a new team, new friends, some familiar faces, and happy times spent watching J develop as a player.  During those years, we called him our tortoise because he wasn't always the fastest, or the showiest, or the best player, but he was always the most hard working and dependable. When he was young, nothing and nobody could tarnish his love for baseball.  Those years also brought J his first taste of heartbreak when he was passed over for the All Star team more than once.  Even then, our boy kept his chin up and didn't let it get him down for long.   He just kept playing, and he kept telling me that someday he'd be a ball player, just wait and see.

After the Little League years, he moved onto high school ball.   Again, there have been triumphs as well as disappointments.  It's to be expected I suppose.  If everything in life came easily, things would have less meaning.  Last year, J wrote an essay for English class about his dreams of baseball.  I posted  about it at the time and will share it again here:  In His Own Words.  And of course, along with the high school years have come the TP years.  It was at the end of his freshman season that J tried out for Coach C and began what has been one of the best parts of his baseball journey.  A year ago, Coach C did a guest post sharing his thoughts on J's training and dreams.  You can revisit that post here: A Word from Coach C.  We all continue to be so grateful that J has Coach C, who continues to train, coach, and mentor him through this phase of his baseball career.  And I sincerely hope that at some point in the not so distant future I can ask him to do another guest post.  This time sharing his thoughts on  J's successful attempt at playing college baseball.

So here we are, on the cusp of J's junior season. And he's still telling me to wait and see. That he's going to be a ball player.   Immediately after the school season ends, the TP season will begin.  And while I'm looking forward to watching all those games, it's a little bittersweet  knowing that those games are getting numbered.  That all too soon,  it will be his senior season.  And then his final TP season.  At that point I hope that all the years of  hard work pay off and J will realize the next stage of his dream.  And that he'll know that every minute he spent on a field instead of with his friends or playing video games or going to parties will have been worth it.  And even if it doesn't work out exactly as he hopes it will, he'll know that he gave it everything he had and then some.  And that all those years, all those moments, all of the triumphs and disappointments led him to where he is.  The other day I came across the following quote and it fits J perfectly.  It's something I hope he'll keep in his mind  and in his heart when he takes the field for the first game of the season.

Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little boy who fell in love with the game and never looked back.  Play for him.