First Confession

I have been lying to you, and I need to come clean … I have no idea what I’m doing. Don’t get me wrong, I like baseball. I grew up on Tony Gwynn, Jerry Coleman and Jack Murphy Stadium. I have vivid memories of dad and I playing catch in the side yard. I even had two seasons of post-season play in my Little League career — two trips to the finals in TOC. But after Little League I took a season off to be in a school play. The next year I came back to play PONY. I only remember playing in one game, but I’ll never forget roping a single to center and taking my first lead-off. I can still feel the metal spikes in the dirt. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Then I broke my wrist in a daredevil rollerblade stunt going down a flight of stairs. Season over and I went back to the theater to be stage crew for the next production.

Freshman year we moved to the other side of town. I thought my athletic career was over until I had a Rudy-esque season with the football team. With an unconquerable spirit I tried out for Freshman Baseball. I remember seeing my first curveball. We were in a scrimmage against Grossmont High School. I had fouled off what seemed like a hundred pitches. I remember laughing to myself jogging back to the batter’s box. The joke was on me. The kid threw something I’d never seen. It looped, I buckled and it fell in for strike three. What was that!? I didn’t make the last cut.

That was the end of my baseball career. Our school team was stacked with the sons of ex-big leaguers: Rollie Fingers, Greg Nettles, Mike Staffierri. Our school had multiple players in the Top 100 recruits with a two-page article on one of them in SI. I stopped trying to play and conceded to watch the game. Always wondered what if? Still do.

I dubbed that Football was my sport. I had a wonderful high school career and finished my senior season with All-league honors … Ahem … 2nd team. But that’s another story.

My confession … I know nothing about the intricacies of baseball. But does anybody know that when I’m managing their six-year-old in the caps division? No! and I work hard to keep it that way. I know everything — that youTube has to offer. My secret has been safe. I have done everything I can to keep my secret safe. I have bought clothes that make me look official, I have played in softball leagues to practice the skill sets I’m about to coach, and I have watched hours of videos, read hundreds of articles and spent $100’s of dollars to get inside the minds of those who know what they are talking about. My secret was safe until now. I confess, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m painting by numbers not by experience. I went from sitting in the bleachers to assisting, to managing, to Player Agent on the board, to blogging about it on the internet. Over the last six years I have learned a lot and I’m still three years from graduating a kid from Little League.

But my children love it — and so does my wife. In fact, 5 out 6 in our family love baseball — that puts us at an .833 OBP! After this season my older boy has two years of Little League left. I have second chances with another son and a daughter coming up the ranks. Now that I have some stories to tell I feel like I don’t need to hide my secret so much. I still don’t profess to know better than others, but I love what I have learned and I don’t want to forget it. That’s why I’m starting this record— a history of a Little League Dad and his confessions. It’s time to tell the truth about Little League dads. We don’t know what we’re talking about, but at this age our kids don’t know that. We milk their trust and pass on every bug squishing, elbow upping, glove-downing idiom we can think of. We love the authority — but as I’m about to confess … I wouldn’t listen to me, I am no authority. My stories are the real authority. They are true and teach a lot about the game, our kids, and most importantly, about relationships. I believe we can tell a lot about the health of a community by the health of their Little League. But before I can ask for your forgiveness, let me tell you my sins …