There should always be room for do-overs

I came to be a T-ball coach the same way I assumed the title of Cub Scout den leader: I volunteered to assist and they put me in charge of a team.
It’s not so bad, really. Six suckers — er, I mean, six caring fathers volunteered to assist and the rec department needed three more coaches. So the six of us were paired up to share coaching duties.
They gave me a royal blue T-shirt, a hat with a Gator on it, the promise of a 5x7 team photo and a refund on my 5-year-old son’s registration fee. They also put me in charge of a mesh bag with an aluminum bat, some soft hardballs and a list of rules.
We met four times for practice and then began the season.
That page of rules is appropriately crushed at the bottom of the mesh bag. One of them stated that all of the kids get to bat and then we change sides; that’s the only one that I remember and the only one that really matters. All other rules pretty much enable that one.
We acknowledge outs, but never take a player off the bases. Sometimes more than one player ends up on the same base and we generally just leave them there.
Before each game, Coach Jay and I introduce ourselves to the other coaches. We agree on a very loose approach to the game: who bats first and whether to allow the runners to advance more than one base at a time, that kind of thing.
About half way through the season, Coach Jay and I have suddenly seen actual improvement. Our boys, in fact, made a couple of outs in the last game (though the runners remained on base).
At the end of three innings, the players gather around Jay in what has become a post-game ritual and ask who won. Jay, who has a real knack with the kids, shouts with great enthusiasm, “It was another tie!” as the boys clap and cheer. Then we line up and high-five the other team and mutter “good game, good game, good game.”
I would vote for a presidential candidate with the nerve to run a campaign based on a vision of society run by T-ball principles.
• Everyone would get a chance to bat and a little mistake, such as running from first to second by way of deep right field, would not be held against us.
• Base runners who reach second, away from the coach at first and the coach at third, would be helped along by the opposing team’s coach.
• A butterfly flitting by second base would be a perfectly acceptable excuse for distraction.
• If you’re tired of standing in right field, for goodness sake, lie down.
• There should be room for do-overs — as when the ball kind of dribbles a few feet from the tee.
• We should be nice to the guy who thinks he knows everything about baseball but actually knows almost nothing.
• And we should be nice to his mama, too. Bless her heart, she has her hands full.
• Parents from opposing sides sit together and like it.
• As long as the coach keeps one hand on the bat until time to hit, no bystanders get whacked in the head with a stick of aluminum. (Disclaimer: This is not a condemnation of the Second Amendment. Disclaimer 2: The first disclaimer was not an endorsement of the Second Amendment.)
• When it’s over, everyone gets cinnamon-flavored Teddy Grahams and a box of Juicy Juice with no added sugar.
In two more weeks, we will have a picnic and they will award each participant a medal for participating. I remember when my little brother received a trophy for participating – not winning the championship, but participating, in soccer. I had strong objections then. Trophies should go to winners, I thought, not everyone who put on a T-shirt and tried.
I was wrong about that. I thought winning was an achievement and participation was a given. I didn’t know then how easy it is to not participate, to not get involved, to not try. I didn’t realize until later the value of showing up and losing.
Here’s what I think is an extraordinary little gem from my half-season as a T-ball coach. One of the flexible rules we have involves the tee itself, the very namesake of our game. We have given the boys on our team the option of hitting off the tee or getting a pitch from Coach Jay. In the beginning, the boy who wanted a pitch was rare. Now, we’re down to just a couple of players who want to hit off the tee. The rest want the challenge of the pitch.
I am convinced that by season’s end, all of them, when they’re up to bat, will ask for the pitch. It’s a noble request. They give up the sure thing for a more remote chance of achieving something difficult and they do it for the pure joy of playing baseball.
Soon enough, the pursuit of winning will supersede the joy of playing and cinnamon-flavored Teddy Grahams won’t taste the same again.

Ross Norton also leads a den of Cub Scouts and has an alternate theory that the Pine Wood Derby, not T-ball, should be a model for life.