Thursday, June 18, 2009

If Only Life Was More Like T-Ball

Last Sunday was the end of the 2009 Greenwich Village Little League T-Ball season for the five- and six-year-old set, but not before the Orioles (in orange) and the Angels (in red) duked it out on the playing fields of Pier 40 on Manhattan’s Westside.

During the four-inning game, every kid got to bat, every kid got to run (even if they ran to third base instead of to first), and every kid got a cheer. No outs. No scores. No tears.










I loved it.

If only life was more like T-Ball...

3 comments:

  1. If only life was more like T-Ball, how dull it would be! We need to keep score, to have success recognized, and to learn to live with the occasions when we lose.

    I suspect that the scoreless, every body gets on base kind of ball he was playing is what turned my grandson off of baseball. Now he plays soccer to win, and hockey to win, and does tae-kwan-do to get to the next belt color.

    Would you keep on writing your blog if you thought no-one was reading it? Another way of keeping score.

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  2. True...for the T-Ball crowd those lessons start next spring in the Junior Minors division.

    Yesterday, a whopping 15 people read my blog...thank you for being one of them. Sure, I'd love it to be 10 times that number, but in the meantime, I'll keep writing.

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  3. here is the real story Larry- We need to learn to citizens. While I agree with you completely that kids need to learn to lose (and feel like it is their fault that they lost) it is also nice to win and have everyone play.

    Here is my thinking: As a camp staff member I was always in favor making sure everyone got to play but not everyone got to win. Major color wars/Macabia/whatever, teaches kids to try hard for the sake of winning and nothing else; there is nothing at stake. There is nothing worse than 3/4 of camp feeling like they lost...while watching 1/4 dance around like they have saved the world from axis of evil (oh yeah i just did that).

    But what it also does is make those kids want to win for the sake of not feeling like that again. Then again, having kids feel empowered at a young age to play a sport and get good at it to see that they can win for the sake of winning (and not to secure a scholarship or trophy, but simply to feel good) is a powerful message that is clearly lost on the AYSO and Hockey Moms (that is right two references in one comment) around the world.

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