Hitting with My Son

My right arm and shoulder hurt tonight. I should probably take some Motrin.

My son played baseball for the first time last year. He improved over the fall season and again in the spring season, but if he didn't practice and get some time in getting comfortable with the bat, glove, and ball, there's only so much he'll be able to do come fall. So we've been going out a couple times a week working on hitting, throwing, and fielding.

We started with 20 baseballs in the ball bag and someplace picked up three more. I cycle through the bag five times, so he sees 100 balls twice a week. Now that he's hitting better, I can field some of the balls that come back to me and I just turn around and pitch them again. So tonight, he probably got someplace around 130 pitches. Some of them were almost as hard as I could throw, and while he wasn't scorching the ball, he was making contact with almost every pitch. And that's why my arm hurts tonight.

It feels good.

I'm hoping that when he gets older, whether he ever goes anyplace with baseball or not, he remembers that he worked at something and got better, and that it was worth the effort.

More than that, I hope he remembers that someone gave a damn.