Today, I took John to batting practice at Play It Again Sports. As he was waiting for more of the Stars to arrive, he was testing out demo bats. There was a family there with a younger boy – probably 9 or so – waiting on his pitching/hitting lesson. John walked into the cage and his first hit was dead center on the back wall. The younger boy looked up in amazement and said, “Wow. I want to hit like that!”
That set off a conversation between me and the boy’s parents about what it is like to have an “older” baseball player. The Dad said, “Do you play catch with him anymore?” I said, “Nope. I don’t even want to get in the cage with him behind the screen!” The younger boy was pretty fascinated and spent the next 15 minutes or so just watching John. At one point John turned around to ask me something and the boy said, “You hit so well!” My baseball player responded, “You can too if you practice a lot and have the right team.” The younger boy said to his parents, “I need to be on a good team.” I told John on the way home to always make sure he pays attention when younger kids are around because it is part of his job as a baseball player to encourage the younger ones. You never know when you might make the difference.