June 4, 2005 - Saturday
Harry said an interesting thing to me today about his practice last night. Both coaches were away and I helped two other parents run the practice. Admittedly, it was a bit chaotic because the three parents weren't really very much in sync, but I would have thought the kids would have had fun. I played a little game of hit-the-bat with Harry and his friend from school, Joe, where I'd hit a ground ball and drop the bat in the ground. The boys would then try to throw the ball and hit the bat. Usually in hit-the-bat, hitting the bat means the player gets to bat next, but since we were working on catching grounders our game quickly turned into a game of getting points. Joe jumped out to a lead, but Harry kind of got the hang of hit and didn't let Joe run away with it. Interestingly, it was Harry and Joe who were both regularly calling out the score and they both seemed to be excited with either one got a point. Joe finished with 9 and Harry with 5.

After his game this afternoon, Harry was kind of grumbling about liking games and not practices and tonight I asked him about it.
"What was the matter with practice?"
"I missed my coaches."
"Sure Harry, but wasn't it OK that I played with you at practice"
"Yeah."
"So, what was the problem with practice. You've usually liked practices haven't you."
"I didn't like that Joe got more points than me."

In T-Ball games they don't keep score and I really hadn't Harry to pay all that much attention to it. But, he clearly understands scoring, as well as winning and losing.
"Well, Harry, Joe is a year older than you and he's had a year more to practice. You shouldn't be frustrated by that. It's really what you would expect from someone with more practice." And then I added, "well, actually your frustration is a good thing if it gets you to practice more and learn more. Then you'll get better and maybe you'll win the next time. Sure it's good to win, but if you do your best you can't really ask for more than that." Admittedly, it took me about 37 years to figure that out, but I say it with conviction now.



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