My 5 ½ year old son, Jalen, began his third season of tee-ball last Saturday. Not sure I've mentioned this, but Jalen is playing on the A's. My son. MY A's. Anyways, the first day is full of boring administrative stuff (like me using my 168 lb. frame to plow through all the other dads so that I could be first to sign up to coach) and teaching the kids a few fundamentals. J's come a long way since he first picked up a bat. Here's his Fall 2009 scouting report:
Hitting: If anyone asks my kid which way he bats, he'll proudly proclaim "I'm a switch hitter". This is the product of two sad, sorry circumstances: (1) Jalen gets a kick out of imitating the entire awful line-up of the 2009 Oakland A's – righties and lefties – when we're just messing around with the bat and a ball. (2) I might've told the boy that I taught myself how to switch-hit in my own younger days. (And, last year, I crushed balls over the wall from both sides of the plate while batting against Jalen. I'm not bragging, but I obliterated his sh*t. Just killed it. Ask Mrs. Bootleg – she was there.)
Wait, where was I? Oh, yeah…J is not a huge fan of the tee, but at least he's finally started to pull the ball. Watching his slow-ass bat poke a thousand ground balls to the second baseman was just maddening at times. I don't wanna jinx the boy, but after Saturday's practice, he looked like the best hitter on the team. Oh, don't look at me like that. This is NOT just his dad talking. That was actually the chatter from the scouts and the agents who'd congregated around the snack mom's cooler full of juice boxes and apple slices.
Defense: See that picture immediately above? The one where Jalen appears to be casually watching a ball roll right by him? Yeah, that's pretty much his definition of defense. Before the ball is hit to him, he does everything right. I mean, you should see how he bends his knees! And, then comes the ball and it all goes horribly wrong. Fortunately, he loves running because if he's playing shortstop, you can count on seeing the back of his jersey as Jalen hightails it towards centerfield in hot pursuit of the ball that won't stop rolling.
Intangibles: Jalen's middle name really is "Henderson". These are the things that happen when your wife requires a c-section and still hasn't recovered from the drugs when it comes time to fill out the birth certificate. He insists on wearing superfluous eye-black on his face and unnecessarily diving just to accumulate grass stains. He's like the little Black union of David Eckstein, Darin Erstad and Eric Byrnes. Favorite postgame treat: chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.
I think I've convinced him to wear the high green socks.
I can't wait until Saturday.
5 comments:
This whole post had me crackin' up Cam. Especially when you said that you "obliterated his sh*t."
I'm waiting for the full team scouting report. Are Kimo and Kid Capri on the team again this year?
The one where Jalen appears to be casually watching a ball roll right by him? Yeah, that's pretty much his definition of defense.
This is what happens when you wean a boy on the fake baseball league.
J's actually got a pretty nice little follow through. Still though, I'm sad that he's not wearing those old-school flourescent green Mizuno batting gloves and bright white cleats that Rickey favored.
That was actually the chatter from the scouts and the agents who'd congregated around the snack mom's cooler full of juice boxes and apple slices.
Brilliant, just brilliant. Also brilliant: your son's taste in treats. Ice cream in Australia just isn't quite right - the vanilla is always too sweet, and it just goes wrong from there - and there are days I've been tempted to hop a plane home just to get a proper frozen snack. Good on the boy for knowing what's what at such a young age.
Wait wait wait. You guys get FALL baseball for the kids? I need to figure out a way to move to California, free health care in Canada be damned!
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