Mom's Pick-me-up and Life Lessons in Baseball

Let me just admit right here and now--I am not Wonder Woman. And after spurts of trying to be, I can get down.  There is always at least once, if not twice, during the spring/summer seasons of baseball where I have a come apart over the insanity and constancy of everyone's schedules and I think I just can't keep up.  This year's "episode" happened last week.  I was trying to talk myself through it, and heard myself telling my children that I wanted them to each write an essay on the life lessons they've learned from baseball.  P2, 16 years old, was a little concerned over the ramifications.  He asked, "Does this mean that if our essays aren't good enough we have to stop playing baseball?" Well... (No, but a well thought out and written thesis on the virtues of baseball would certainly cheer me up.)

Due to... big surprise... everyone's baseball schedules, not all the essays are finished. But 11-year-old P4 got his done today and it was just what I needed to read.

Life Lessons Baseball Teaches Me

by P4

I started playing baseball because it looked like a fun sport. I still think it's fun, but I also realize the importance of the lessons I have learned in baseball. Some people think baseball is just hitting and catching the ball, but they don't realize what the game should teach them.

One of the lessons I've learned is teamwork. In baseball teamwork helps teams win. For example, when you're all contributing in the game, you win! That's called teamwork because everyone is trying to help each other. Everyone wants to win.

In life, teamwork gets things done. For example, when you're working out in the yard and you have a long job, it takes a long time to get it done if you're all by yourself. But if you don't have to do it alone and you both want to get it done, it goes faster.

Another lesson I've learned is about cheering. In baseball, cheering gives your teammates encouragement. For example, when you're up at bat and you don't hear anyone cheering for you, you sometimes feel nobody really cares about your at bat. But when you do hear people cheering you on, you feel you need to do something.

In life it is the same exact thing. When nobody is cheering you on, you sometimes think nobody cares. But when somebody is cheering you get encouragement.

I love playing baseball. I am glad it's teaching me life lessons.

P4 is in the center, being mobbed by his ecstatic teammates after he hit a walk-
off home run to win a tough and intense league championship game.