Thursday, May 25, 2006

Mr. Dilettante - Certified Youth Coach

Nothing says credential quite like a membership card - and now I have one. If following my son's exploits with the Phillies were not quite enough, now begins part two of our baseball-filled summer, as my daughter begins play in T-Ball in the mighty New Brighton Park and Recreation Department. She is a member of Team 1, also known as "the red team," for the t-shirt that she and her teammates will wear. And I am co-coach of this undertaking, along with another father whose son will be my daughter's teammate. As part of my preparation for being co-coach, I went through a coach's meeting, where I watched a mightily amusing video with blinding flashes of obviousness about the need for sportsmanship, fair play and overall good citizenship. As our charges average 6 years of age, apparently we are to refrain from instilling bloodlust into their performance. That needs to wait until they are 7, apparently.

Still, T-Ball is a lot of fun for the kids, even if it only tangentially resembles baseball. At this age, kids are just as likely to be playing with dandelions in the outfield when the ball rolls out their way. New Brighton offers a very basic, everyone bats and runs station-to-station type of ball, so it's not likely that we'll have to instruct any of the kids in some of the black arts of baseball. Games will generally take place on Monday at 6:15 at Pike Lake School in New Brighton, beginning on June 12, and will run through most of June and July. We'll update the exploits of Team 1 in this space.

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