"whY"MCA Baseball

This year we have put Elijah in YMCA summer baseball.  Now we are wondering why we did.  Two summers ago he played in their t-ball league.  What a joke of a league!  It is definitely a victim of the child physiologist mentality that children should not be made to feel bad about themselves.  That they should be told what a wonderful job they are doing, no matter how bad it may be, and that everyone is a winner.  Just a few examples are: no one ever got "out", every one batted in every inning and the last batter always got a home run, because everyone scored.  Now part of this is because they say that kids don't really care if they win or not, they just want to have fun.  Baloney!  These people have never sat in a dugout of 5 year-olds wanting to know if they are winning.

Anyway, we figured by the time they were playing baseball, that the rules would have changed.  They do, but not much.  Each batter gets to swing at as many pitches as he wants.  If he misses the ball and it would have been called a ball, then there is no strike.  They only get strikes if the ump actually calls the pitch a strike, then they get 4 of them (in case you don't know, it's 3 in real baseball), no one walks.  They also cannot run if the baseman is overthrown.  They do at least call outs for those who hit into an out or are thrown out.

What are we teaching our children by allowing this to take place?  That you deserve third, fourth, fifth, or higher numbers of chances when you don't do something right the first time.  That everyone is just as good as the next person when it comes to things such as physical talents.  That someone who doesn't work as hard at something deserves praise as much as someone who spends hours of time practising to improve themselves.

They will also have to unlearn all these things about the game.  It has been said by a really great man, that it is much harder to unlearn a falsehood than it is to learn the truth in the first place.  Old habits die hard, and there will be a lot of death that has to take place before these boys can move on to a serious league.  What would Ruth or DiMaggio be thinking?

Well, enough of my little rant.  My little guy is playing ball.  He'll never be a superstar, but we encourage him to practice like he's going to be one.  We teach him that sometimes someone is really good and that's why they are getting to play where they are.  We tell him that hard work will improve his chances of getting where he wants to be, whether that's MLB or a fireman or carpenter.  We encourage an Eccl 9:10 outlook!