It's Not About the Baseball

For a variety of reasons, I avoided signing up JP for travel baseball for many years.  I've always felt - strongly - that playing recreational league baseball and all-stars in June - was the right decision for JP and our family, especially since we played in the spring and fall.  

As is abundantly clear to anyone who has read this blog, I wouldn't trade anything in my life for the years I spent on the baseball fields in middle Tennessee - at practices and games - with JP, his teammates, and the men who coached for me.  Those are some of the best memories of my life, by far.  Hopefully, they're some of JP's best memories or, perhaps, they will be as he gets older.  

Sadly, travel baseball is slowly and inexorably squeezing the life out of recreational league baseball, or so it seems to me.  By age 13, I think playing travel baseball is a necessity for players who want to play in middle school and high school because the competition is so much better than in recreational league baseball.  In truth, I might have waited a year too long before starting JP in travel baseball at age 14.  

Still, here we are, all up in travel baseball.  For better or worse.

JP and I spent the weekend in the Tri-Cities.  Our home base was a Holiday Inn Express in Johnson City, Tennessee.  His 15U team - Harris Baseball Club - played games in Johnson City, Kingsport, and Greenville.  We were rained out of a game in Bristol, so we just missed four games in three days in four different cities.  Yep, travel baseball.  

Here's the thing, though.  Getting to spend five hours in the car with JP, listening to podcasts, then hang out with him over three days was fantastic.  For me, the baseball was icing on the cake.  I felt so lucky to downshift for few days and just spend time with JP, along, away from the distractions of home.  It was similar to how I felt when I took Joe to the travel soccer tournament in Chattanooga a month or so ago.

JP and I talked about, well, nothing and everything.  The NBA draft, baseball, driving, teen suicide, friendship, school.  With a teenager, having a captive audience, so to speak, presents a rare opportunity to cover a lot of conversational ground.  We listened to music.  We listened to a Slow Burn podcast episode about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which was an entry point into a conversation about the Supreme Court, the confirmation process, Thurgood Marshall, and politics.  

The good stuff.  We talked about the good stuff.  

What's really special, I think, is that because of travel baseball, I know my 15-year old son just a little bit better than I knew him before we left Nashville on Thursday evening.  

And that's the secret, I think.  It's not about the baseball.  It's never been about the baseball.

It's about spending time with JP, on the road.  It's about listening to him and learning who he is becoming.  Above all else, it's about discerning what I can do to help him and support him in becoming who he wants to be.  In sports, sure, but more importantly, in life.  

When we ate dinner at Bonefish Grill in Johnson City Saturday night - after JP had given up and absolute bomb to right field for 2-run homer in the first inning of a loss (to a kid hitting with a wood bat, no less) - I asked him where he wanted to go to college.  

"Away, I think."  

I smiled and nodded.  "I'm proud of you.  I've always admired people who go away to school."  

It almost stops my heart to think that four years from now, right now, JP will be preparing to leave us and go to college.  How can that be so?  I still gaze longingly at the City Elite stroller almost every time I go down to the basement, reminiscing about my many walks through the neighborhood with JP and later, Joe.  

The elusive nature of time passing.  It's crazy and it's terrifying.  And, in many ways, it's sad.  

What to do?  Treasure every minute I spend with JP the next four years.  Every travel baseball trip.  Every run.  All of it.  That's all I can do, really.

And when the time comes, I'll say goodbye.  I'll hug him.  I'll cry.  And off he will go to college.  To Middlebury, Sewanee, Georgia, Dartmouth, Colorado, Berry, or Stanford.  I'll stumble haltingly back into a house that's suddenly grown quieter.  

I'll hug Joe and get ready to do it all again four years later.