West Cocoa Chat

I made one of those decisions the other day that in some ways goes against conventional Christian thought the other day. We’re in to one of those seasons of “many meetings.” We’ve met so much lately that I’ve been very scarce at our high school baseball field. I’ve always been a fixture at whatever field my son was playing at since his t-ball days.

Now my son is a junior on our high school baseball team and he just earned the starting 2nd base position and he was also tagged to lead off in our first game this past Wednesday. I told him on Monday that his mother and I wouldn’t make the game. The obvious reason was it was Wednesday night but on top of that my wife cooks for our church on Wednesdays. To top it off the game was 50 miles away in Orlando and was scheduled to start at 4pm. I could tell he was disappointed but he’s 16 closing in on 17 so I knew he could handle it.

We had another meeting on Tuesday night and then it hit me on the way home. I’ve been giving all this time to the church but very little to my son. Baseball is his passion and finally, for the first time he would be leading off in a high school game and Dad wouldn’t be there. So when I got home I reversed my decision and his face, his 16-year-old tough guy face lit up.

The game was against University High School, a 3000 plus school located near the University of Central Florida. There were 25 pro scouts, all armed with radar guns and they had come to check out their starting pitcher, a 6-foot, 4-inch lefty. As Steven took the first pitch 25 radar guys raised up. I heard one of them say, “93.” The next pitch came in to which one of the scouts said, “96!” That’s right sports fans; this high school kid hit 96 mph! The next pitch Steven lined down the right field line but it hooked just foul. 2 feet to the left and my son has at least a double against this major league prospect. He ended up drawing a walk, stole (our only stolen base) 2nd, and then was bunted over to third. We were unable to bring him in. He struck out the 2nd time up and then in his third at bat he hit one to deep centerfield that the centerfielder tracked down.

We ended up losing 8 to 0 but we had some bright spots putting the bat on the ball against top ranked pitching from a 6A school. Steven rode with me on the way home. Now, please don’t tell my wife this next detail: We drove through a Krystal Hamburger restaurant and bought 12 cheese Krystals. We split them 50/50 so there is no telling how many calories we ingested.

There will be 2 things I will always remember about my decision.
1. Our one-hour ride home which was full of eating, laughing, and sharing.
2. The hug he gave me just before he took a shower when he got home. He hugged me and said, “Dad, I really appreciate you coming to my game tonight. I love you.”
There are some decisions you regret. This wasn’t one of them. Have a good weekend family