Leveling the Playing Field

by Jen Singer

I feel like I'm cheating. The guilt. The worry. The sick feeling in my stomach. And it's all because of baseball.

I confess: I'm thinking of signing my boys up for batting lessons at the local baseball batting cages. Yes, I realize that this is something many baseball families do, but I wish I didn't feel we had to.

My fourth grader has decided to join the recreation baseball league next spring even though he hasn't played organized ball since kindergarten, back when he spent much of the time on his T-ball team drawing trucks in the infield sand.

We've got a lot of catching up to do.

It's not that he hasn't touched a baseball at all since then. He plays catch with his brother, who's been playing baseball for four years. And he practices batting with the automatic pitcher my mom got my third grader for Christmas two years ago. If this was 30 years ago, he'd have enough experience to join a recreation baseball team, back when rec was all about learning.

But now, he's got much tougher competition. Competition that plays travel ball year-round. Competition that can hit the ball beyond the center fielder while confidently strolling around the bases in $100 cleats and sleek leather batting gloves like mini A-Rods in the playoffs. Competition that's going to crush my son – and his new love for baseball – if I don't get him some batting lessons with a retired college baseball coach.

Ugh. There goes my stomach again.

When I was a little younger than my son, I joined a Little League baseball team, which was coached by a few volunteer dads. I didn't have private coaching, unless you count my big brother whipping the ball at me and yelling, "C'mon! Catch it!" Yet everything I learned in the backyard was enough for me to play ball with a team. Sadly, though, it's not enough for my son.

There's little room for late bloomers in today's youth sports, not with soccer for kids as young as three and travel sports for children who aren't even old to enough find the town they're traveling to on a map. Which is why I'm signing up my son for batting lessons, even if it turns my tummy a bit. It's the only way I can level the playing field for him. It's the only way to make room on the baseball diamond for my late bloomer.