My younger son is a baseball stud. He throws hard. He hits home runs. He was called in to pitch in a crucial sectionals game with the bases loaded and one out. It was such a key moment that I literally had to get up and pace around the field. I couldn’t even watch, relying on the crowd noise to gauge how he was doing. But he got out of the jam and finished the game and we won sectionals.
His problem is that he’s a perfectionist and he flips out when he doesn’t do well. He’s had epic tantrums after strikeouts in random games. He’s cursed at umpires. He’s thrown stuff. We’ve taken him to a therapist who gave him breathing exercise and other strategies to lower the temperature. When his tantrums continued, I spoke with my wife and we decided we’d tell him that if the behavior continued we’d pull him from his club team. We thought we needed to raise the stakes like that to finally get him to get his shit under control.
“Then I quit baseball,” he said when I talked with him.
I felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under me. I didn’t want him to quit baseball! I also, though, had to give him props for skillfully turning the tables on me. Here I thought I was the one with leverage.
“I want to play lacrosse,” he said, sticking in the knife and twisting it. “My friend told me I’m a natural at lacrosse and he plays on the travel team.”
I’m somewhat of a baseball snob and view lacrosse (LAX) as a lesser pursuit played by elitist and snotty rich kids (LAX bros). My opinion of LAX is also influenced by the times I’ve come across it. For example, my son used to practice at large turf facility and right next to the baseball diamond was a field that hosted a LAX practice.
“Protect this house!” one of the coaches screamed at the players.
“Your moms would be ashamed by this horseshit effort!” I’d hear the LAX coaches shout at kids.
“You run like a pregnant panda!”
These guys were clowns, caricatures of bully football coaches, the opposite of Ted Lasso, and horrible spokesmen for the sport.
But my big thing with my son’s turn to LAX was that it wasn’t going to fix his emotional issues. He was just kicking the can down the road.
But while it killed me he was quitting baseball, I wasn’t going to tell him he couldn’t play. He can find out for himself that his problems would follow him to LAX. He also later agreed to play baseball, too. He’s 12 but he’s going to play up on a 13U team on the big field. I’m hoping that playing up will make him not put so much pressure on himself and that he’ll be able to deal with his failures better knowing he’s going against older bigger kids. But we’ll see!
HAS YOUR KID EVER EXPRESSED INTEREST IN LAX? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.
For information about the emotional side of baseball, see:
- I Spent 30K on Youth Baseball Last Year; Here’s How
- Anger Management and Youth Baseball: How to Calm Down
- How to Manage Your Kid’s Baseball Tantrums and Meltdowns
- 4 Ways to Respond to a Coach Playing Favorites
- How to Stop Being a Crazy Baseball Dad
- How to Be a Good Baseball Dad in the Backyard
- Is It Now Fashionable to Hate On Baseball Dads?
- Are Local Little Leagues Bad for Baseball?
For information on hitting, see:
- How to Get Out of a Hitting Slump
- 4 Best Baseball Batting Aids (No. 3 is Free)
- 4 Hitting Drills You Need to Do Before Every Game
- 4 Old School Baseball Drills You Need to Be Using
- 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Baseball Bat
For information on pitching, see:
- What You Need to Know About Little League Elbow
- 4 Ways To Increase Your Kid’s Pitching Velocity
- Is the Circle Change Dangerous for Youth Pitchers?
- Why I Don’t Let My Son Pitch in Little League
- How to Make Sure Your Kid Isn’t Overpitched in Basebal
For ways to get faster, see: