the draft

A couple weeks ago, I signed Mac up for Summerville Little League. At the time of sign-up, I was told he would need to report to "the draft" on Saturday, February 20, between 12pm and 2pm.

Did they say "the draft"?

I know he's tall for his age but they know he's 7, right? He's not 17 and trying to hopscotch college to go straight to the pros.

So I questioned what the draft involved. Just a few drills, ma'am, to evaluate his skill level.

Right.

Between the sign-up and the draft, we were traveling to Orlando for all but about 4 days. So when we got home from Orlando, we went to the sporting goods store the very next day to buy a new glove. The old glove was not in great shape and it looked like it belonged to the 4 year-old for whom it was originally purchased. We needed all the help we could get before the draft, so a new glove it was.

Except the man at Dick's was not very nice or helpful. Maybe he only wants to wait on professional athletes who might saunter into his branch location here in Summerville but I have a feeling that 7 year-olds are probably what he gets mostly so he needs to put on a happy face and dip into his patience reserves.

With new glove in tow, Mac and I went outside to practice batting on Friday afternoon. The drill necessarily meant that I was the pitcher which is not necessarily my strongest suit. Mac told me to pitch overhand but I knew that was a recipe for disaster, so I did these nice and easy underhand pitches which he knocked out of our pretend ballpark. He didn't want to practice fielding, so we called it a day.

After his basketball game yesterday we hightailed it over to the ballpark as we only had 45 minutes left in our allotted draft time. I knew we were in trouble when we walked to our appointed field 4 and saw all these little 7 year-old boys in their cleats, baseball pants and last year's Summerville Little League jerseys. But Mac is fearless and isn't daunted by challenges, so he went right out there, put on the batting helmet as instructed and went to home plate.

Where he was told he'd get 2 pitches from an adult. Only 2 pitches, son, so hit what you can.

And then this grown man threw a fast overhand baseball pitch at my child, who swung and missed.

Pitch 2, I'm happy to report, was solidly hit so there was redemption.

The next drill was for Mac to hit the ball off a tee and then run to first base as fast as he could so they could time him. They told him to run through first base, but he promptly slowed down and stopped on the base so he lost serious time there.

The final two drills required him to get his glove and report to shortstop. The pitcher man asked him if he knew where first base was. Um. Hello, Mister. He just ran there. So Mac politely pointed out first base to this man who then threw him a grounder, which Mac sort of stopped and threw to first base. It was a good throw but his ball was more of an arc than a straight-line bullet like these other boys were throwing. The final drill was a pop fly which Mac missed but picked up and threw to first base.

After a couple sports with Upward, which stresses sportsmanship, being part of a team, and learning the fundementals, this baseball thing seems a huge departure from what I think is necessary for a young child just starting out in sports. And I've been told that S'ville Little League is actually lower key and less competitive than the Parks League here in town. A mother who moved her children from Little League to the Parks League because "there just wasn't competition in Little League" told me that when her son played 5 year-old ball, they actually had a catcher on his team who couldn't catch and would let the ball hit the backstop and roll to him to catch it. H-O-R-R-O-R! Needless to say, I don't want my child to be the one that the other mothers talk about as the weak link but if he doesn't get to learn the game now, when does he learn it? And the sad thing is that Mac is a pretty decent player but compared to those boys out there yesterday who apparently swung bats and donned baseball gloves immediately out of utero, he looks like he's never heard the word "baseball" much less played it. I hope we survive the season!