This weekend Chris and I went to a game where a little buddy of ours was playing. It was Y-ball — tee-ball played through the YMCA. It had been a LONG time since Chris’s Y-ball days.
I love Y-ball. There were no grumpy parents, no thrown bats, no slammed batting helmets, no hysterical coaches. It was, well, fun.
The third baseman rarely looked at the plate, but he compensated by having really cool sunglasses. One of the players woke up that morning just wanting to wear his favorite camo shorts instead of his baseball pants. Not a problem.
There are no strike outs. Everyone hits the ball. If you can’t hit it with your coach pitching it, the ball goes on the tee until you do whack it.
Actually there are no outs. Well, there are and there aren’t. The team in the field can get an out by fielding the ball and throwing to first or tagging the runner. But — here’s the interesting part — the runner isn’t considered out by the team batting. He gets to stay.
And everyone scores. When the last batter comes up each inning, he runs all the way around, no matter whether he hit it 100 feet or 1 foot.
Fans on both sides cheered every player. One of the dads pitching had a younger son who wanted daddy. Not a problem: he pitched while holding him. At times, the child wanted mommy (the first base coach), so he’d run back and forth. Everyone just thought it was cute.
I know that in later years more of a sense of competition has to kick in. But it wouldn’t hurt us if every once in a while in little leagues all around we decided to play by Y-ball rules. Just for a night.
Are you sure it HAS to kick in?
We are in the middle of our t-ball season. Is there anything more fun to watch?!
Those were the good old days! It is a good lesson for all of us to cheer one another on no matter how well we hit the ball! What if the church were more like that? What would happen to our motivation?
So, would “Christian” Y-ball be where people come together as a church with the goal of “winning” (or being right) subservient to the goal of players learning to “love the game” (or loving Christ)? I think we could use some of that sometimes…
or maybe all the time…
I coached my sons T-ball team this year. Never coached before, but it was a great experience and a memory that my son will never forget. The kids had a great time together. We played three innings, everyone hit, ran the bases, scored, all winners. At the end of the season all the kids got a trophey. No steriods, no bat throwing, no running the pitchers mound, just love for the game.
We returned to Y-ball rules once, when my son was about 11. It was the last game of the season and we were playing the other team from our home town, which means the kids were playing against their classmates. It was usually a bitter game. This time, though, the players suspended “real” rules early in the game, which made the parents lighten up. Nobody struck out. Basemen “accidentally” missed throws to let their competitors keep running. The umpire gave up like a good sport. These boys were smart. They knew they could keep the game going much longer than regualation if they turned it into a show. We found a way to turn the lights on and I think we played 12 innings that night. Nobody knows who won. A perfect ending to the season.
I think that, for kids– at least when I was one– what can spoil the fun and benefit of baseball, or any sport, is 1) too much focus on competition– on beating the other guy or 2) being scared of getting hurt–either physically (like getting hit in the face while trying to field the ball) or emotionally (by being made fun of).
These may be the two things that, if they enter in, can keep our churches unhealthy– competition and fear of being hurt…
… or specically, as was my case in Little League Football, an abusive “coach”…
that should say “specifically”
This reminds me of one of my daughter’s early softball games. A storm was nearby, and you could occassionally hear some faint thunder. The third baseman (I would try to be PC here, but don’t know what is the gender appropriate way to do it) was the first to walk off the field during our half of the inning. She thought the thunder was close enough that she needed to go sit with Mom. Soon, the left fielder agreed and joined. Eventually, the coaches lost control of this one as both team’s girls were not about to continue playing!
Seems like I read somewhere about becoming like little children.
DU
My four year old just finished his first season of t-ball and we had the same rules. It was so fun for the kids and parents alike. Rob was the coach, but every Dad on the team coached at some point. We had Dads, and occasionally siblings clinging to Dads, on each base most innings. We loved going to the games! Our parents sat on the same bleachers as the other team’s and socialized and cheered each other’s kids on. At the end of the game we were all winners and everyone got a snack. I hate to think that it will ever change. Surely we have a least one more t-ball season before we go to coach pitch!
It is amazing how adding so many rules to a “game” can suck the fun right out of it for the players.
There are 3 phases to life. Y-ball, baseball, wishing it was Y-ball again.
My son is playing this year for the first time. While waiting for our first game, we were watching another team play. As the hitter “slid” in to first base, he knocked the firstbaseman over. The base player began to cry and nurse a skinned knee. The runner immediately ran over to check on his opponent. When he saw the skinned knee, he bent down and kissed it!
I love Y-ball. I miss it terribly.
Our 5-year-old is in a T-ball league exactly like this. There is no place for competition when you’re just trying to figure out how to play. He is easily distracted by the flowers in the outfield and still has to be reminded to run after hitting the ball. He always looks like Barry Bonds, just staring at the ball after he hits it. It is a comparison I am discouraging.
We got together with the Hendersons for Memorial Day and spent some time discussing life at the Cope’s. There were stories of being invaded by Giants. I heard that one “Diane Cope” was sad to see my niece and nephew leave the house, as they had been quite effective at getting things down from the higher shelves.
I envy my niece the adventure she is about to launch on…the education she will get…the friends she will make. It helps to know that she will be with family.
That just trains kids to be a bunch of softies and doesn’t prepare them for the real world.
I kid. I kid.
It is so very true. Why can’t we just cheer for the players on the other teams? We’re all in the same game. Even if the other team happens to be a charismatic instrumental church.
My 5 year old plays for the Modesto “Y” Dragons in the 5-6 old T-ball league. Last week He was so excited when he ran to second base, he forgot to to stop. He finally stopped at second base on the next field. We finally coaxed him back the right base. What a great time we have had at T-ball. Can’t wait to see where he runs next week.
Wonderful stories.
Leland, I’m thinking that I may turn that into a sermon: Y-ball, baseball, I wish I was in Y-ball again.
Jen - That should be a worship video!
Leland, very well put regarding rules.
Mike, “Fans on both sides cheered every player” reminds me of Hebrews 12:1 and being cheered on by the historical community of faith as we run the race of life.
Yeah, but what do I do as the book keeper? I’m just a touch too competitive.
Regarding: “Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Comes to Highland” from this weekend, I heard on the radio yesterday that the Ft. Worth Symphony is putting on a Pops Concert featuring the music of Led Zeppelin. You know you’re getting old(er) when the rebellious music that you listened to as a kid is now played as pop music by a symphony.
Interesting. Baseball with grace.
I’m the sad sport to admit that t-ball, with the lack of rules, drove me nuts! Go ahead… some psychololgist reading this may now analyze what this really says about me. I have to say that the first year of real baseball was alarming for opposite reasons, though. T-ball made me nuts because when my child got what could have been a real double, he had to stay at first and when he really threw someone out it didn’t count. Not too fun for a real baseball lover like myself. However, the goofy parents and whacky interpretation of the rules in real baseball this year was truly infuriating!
Ah, I think we can make it y-ball all the time if those of us in the stands remember those things even when the competition gets a little tougher.
When our 13 year old was 5, playing T-Ball, he and the other boys were so focused on the flowers in the outfield that we had to remind them to stand up and look for the ball. Seems like the girls were more focused on the game. . . cracked us up.
What a wonderful reminder of the beauty of being a child. Certainly there is a spiritual application here, even in Y Ball! Teamwork, encouragement, edification, support, laughter, servanthood, love, joy and happiness, security and reliance on knowing others are there(Parents, Coaches), the cheering of the crowd and resting in the assurance that no matter how long it takes, there are people willing to stand by you to encourage you to keep trying and moving on!
Thanks Mike.
Great post … reminds me of the “rules” by which I play golf! Feel good golf. If it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t count. But we don’t keep score, so there is no count.
At 1 year old, life’s first thing our son took serious was traffic signals. He noticed every one of them, dutifully pointing at them and saying “pa,” his baby form of “lampa” (Swedish for “lamp” including a traffic light, Swedish being his first language, which he spoke with his mom).
At 2 he became serious about orange juice. If the family ate at a restaurant, it had to serve OJ. This insistence greatly reduced our cognitive dissonance in selecting restaurants.
At 3 he was madly in love with Carrie Jo. One day they were at our place, playing house with my son’s Fisher-Price set. Suddenly the little girl, crying, ran out of our place, screaming that she wanted her parents to come get her, NOW! The problem was our son’s insistence on parking the toy cars in the playhouse bedroom. To him this “solution” nullified the distance in getting out of bed and to the car. The little girl, of course, would have nothing to do with cars, including grease and fumes, in the bedroom. You may say, “Now doesn’t that sound just like a man?” Stereotypes aside, I continue to admire my son’s 3-year-old male practicality.
At 4, like his kid sister who later demonstrated the same metamorphosis, he became serious—I should say wild—about chocolate. Grocery shopping became an exercise in meandering through a supermarket without getting close to the stuff, thus to avoid to-him nonsensical but highly vocal debates over long-range consequences (”when you’re 16, girls will want nothing to do with you if you’re fat and have rotten teeth”). But ah, the maturity of 4-year-olds: If it happened, and I could just get 20 yards and 20 seconds beyond the chocolate, it was all forgotten and things were again just hunky-dory—not like adults, who on being denied something by the boss start plotting their ultimate revenge.
And at 5 he became dead-on serious about T-ball. He even admired me for having a baseball autographed by Nolan Ryan, and we took a father-son trip to watch the Astros play in Houston, a little over 300 miles away. Yes, like others in Mike’s blogsite, on the T-ball diamond I witnessed tykes sliding into first base and daydreaming as the ball zoomed their way, but also very focused at the plate and very indifferent as to what color their teammates were. No steroids, no gambling, no chewing tobacco, no swearing (audible or otherwise), no belly-bumping with the ump. The kids displayed a level of acceptance and maturity not necessarily witnessed among the spectator parents. The only downside was that occasionally, during a baseball game on TV, some big-time ballplayer would come on in a commercial, telling my child to get something, such as a product made of chocolate. Since mine was already a chockosaurus (see age 4, above), I learned a more-refined definition of “significant other.” Somehow a luminous figure my child had never met was more significant, and thus more authoritative, than his dad.
Now the pre-adolescent and teenage years have come and gone. I look forward to seeing my grandkids at the plate, focused, ready to hit the T-ball. BATTER-UP!
–DAVID
With four children ages 24, 18, 16 & 14 children’s sports has been a big part of our lives for almost 20 years. We’ve tried to live by one rule: It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game, that matters. We’ve had great times in recreational leagues, as well as in highly competitive leagues. Also, we’ve never pushed our children into sports, but have used our powers of gentle persuasion and encouragement the couple of times they wanted to quit. They didn’t; we’re glad. Sports has been and continues to be a vital part our children’s spiritual formation. Thanks for the excellent post, Mike. Blessings to all, -bw
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