Bernie O'Neill
Columns
August 28, 2008 12:05 AM
By: Bernie O'Neill
The youth baseball season is coming to a close for my two sons and I must say I’m going to miss it.
Years ago, they chose fastball over soccer and have enjoyed it ever since.
Of course it doesn’t afford the same workout you get out there on the soccer pitch, with soccer surpassing baseball as the popular summer game. Perhaps it’s because soccer and lacrosse and other such sports offer a better cardio workout, which helps with hockey, which for many sports families is really what it’s all about. It’s conditioning.
Also, the wrong type of kid has trouble even staying awake, let alone focused in a baseball game.
But for the child who is into it, is focused, and does love those moments of drama and excitement that come along in just about every game of ball, it remains a great sport.
I used to coach a few years ago, but they have reached a level that exceeds my knowledge of the game — not that all of us parents don’t continue to learn new things about the sport just from watching our kids and listening to what is said.
I also suspect I don’t have the right lingo to be one of the top coaches you see out there on the fields, let alone a first-rate baseball parent.
For instance, when a player comes up to bat, you’re supposed to say stuff like, “Come on now, Jonesie (if, for instance, the player’s last name is Jones), hey, now, hey, now, smack one outta here, Big J, let’s go let’s go, come on, now, bat on ball here big guy, bat on ball, base hit scores a run, big base hit, crank one outta here, big stick, big stick.”
This is the sort of motivational baseball chatter that comes from the grandstands and the dugout (although the dugouts are no longer dug out, they’re just fenced in; and the stands aren’t very grand – they’re made out of metal and after 20 minutes sitting on them your butt hurts like you have ridden a horse from Markham to Barrie).
Every player whose name or jersey number even remotely lends itself to the practice, has a nickname. So if you’re Troy they call you T-Roy. If you wear number 11, they might call you Sticks. If his number is 55, you might just call him Fives.
(Mind you, certain numbers work better than others. You don’t here anyone say, “Let’s go, 12!” or “You can do it, 27!” It’s about the player picking the right number at the beginning of the year that lends itself to number-based baseball rooting.)
The encouragements are uttered in the hope they will motivate the 10-year-old to swing the bat adeptly and put some runs on the board.
Not that the runs are put on a board, they’re just written down on a piece of paper in a binder.
Every once in a while someone will lean over and ask, ‘Hey, what’s the score?’ Maybe if they were still put on a board kids would score more of them.
Anyway, all the parents are saying stuff that is a variation on this theme. So are the coaches. So are some of the players. It’s like if encouragement stops for even one second, the player won’t get a hit.
And what do I say, as I start to get into it, too? I say, “Come on, Chris, you can do it!”
And everybody turns to me as if to say, “Who the heck is Chris?”
Even though they know darned well who Chris is. Chris is the kid’s name! I just can’t get used to calling him C-Mac, or whatever his Official Baseball Nickname is, partly because I’m sitting right beside Chris’ father.
Until I realize his father is also calling him C-Mac and saying stuff like, “C’mon now, C-Mac, good swings good swings, let’s nail one here.”
So there you go.
What I’ve always marvelled at, in all of these youth sports, is the number of sponsorships teams are able to garner from local businesses.
A business might pay $300 to have its name on all the sleeves of a team’s baseball jerseys. A business might be able to sponsor a hockey team in any of the local house leagues for around $500 or $600. This gets their name on the sweater and it might get their name in the paper every so often when league results are reported.
But whether or not this kind of sponsorship results in $500 worth of new business, I do not know. They seem to just do it out of generosity — for the kids and because they realize how much enjoyment the youngsters get out of being on a team, playing the great game of their choice.
As with everything else, costs for ice time, referees, umpires and equipment, keep on rising.
I don’t have a problem paying for my kids to play sports. But without support from sponsors, costs would escalate to where many other young people could not take part.
They’d never enjoy the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat, never hear themselves being cheered on as J-Bo or K-Rod — their on-field or on-ice nom de guerre.
Their childhood could well be far less fun and a lot less interesting.