Baseball 2015 is in the books! Colin started off on a T-ball team because of his age. This makes his third year playing T ball. Here they group the kids together by age, 5-6, 7-9, 10-13. New rules say the 5-6 year olds cannot have formal games, must all be on the same team and the sport will be about skill building instead of competition. And at the end they will all get a medal and a T shirt and everyone will be happy because no one kept score. Don't even get me started. Additionally, 5-6 year olds cannot play on Saturday either, so they will practice two nights a week and then on Friday night they will hold a pseudo scrimmage (that they can't call a scrimmage) by splitting the kids into two groups (heaven forbid we use the word team!). His first practice was a disaster. Only 3 of the 12 kids had ever played before, it was such a set back for his skills and fundamentals. The kid is a natural born athlete and it stinks that they have to go by age instead of ability. Right away coaches from the 7-9 year old team noticed Colin's ability and asked the youth sports director why Colin was on the Tball team. They were told the same thing we were, rules and requiring grouping by age.
After a couple weeks of Colin's morale going way down, he didn't even want to go to practice anymore because it wasn't any fun for him, and the coach using Colin to help teach the other kids how to play the director stepped up and gave us a break. He could see Colin wasn't enjoying himself and wasn't where he needed to be. Poor Colin was afraid to even throw the ball overhand to the kids on his team because he knew they couldn't catch it, so he would stop himself mid play and toss it underhand to them so he wouldn't hurt them. While I adore his thoughtfulness, he should not be put in that situation. So the decision was made to move him to the 7-9 year old team where he would be with kids more on his ability level. He was elated. He worked hard and had so much fun. He was the little guy on the team, but with his competitiveness he had something to prove and he was a star. He did fantastic and all he talks about now is baseball. He's checking out baseball books from the library and watching The Sandlot for his TV free time. Football season is now upon us and I'm so thankful the director is going to group him on his ability for this sport as well. They will assess his skills and the skills of the kids on both the 5-6 and 7-8 year old teams and determine the best fit for him. It will be interesting to see where he falls, but the kid has natural athletic talent in just about everything he does. Shelby and I were both athletic to some degree, but I don't know where this kid gets it!
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