IF YOU GIVE A BOY A BASEBALL

If you give a boy a baseball, he will want a bat to go with it.

You’ll buy him the best bat you can find, and then he will probably want a bucket of balls and a glove and some cleats too.

Then, he will probably spend hours begging you to go out in the yard to play with him, even though you may want to sit on the couch and watch tv. He will insist. And his insistence will win.

And when a boy gets a jersey, he will need pants and socks and a belt to go with it. And a TEAM…

And then life as you know it will end.

There will be no more lazy weekends watching TV. You will see more sunrises than you ever thought possible. Every spare minute of your time will be spent hauling buckets and bags and stinky cleats and crazy boys all over tarnation for hours to practice for a game. 
THE GAME.

And your house will be a mess. And your car will be dirty. All because you gave a boy a baseball.

Your weekends will be spent freezing or burning to death on a fold up chair. And his weekends will be spent gaining confidence and friends, and learning new skills and having fun and getting dirty. So dirty in fact that you will have to learn how to do laundry in a whole new way, like maybe at a carwash using the pressure washer.

And you will be there the day he hits his first home run, first strikeout, and his first double play. And he will make you SO proud. The other parents will congratulate you. But you feel weird saying thank you because it's not you at bat or on the mound. It's all him, you’re merely the facilitator.

And right before your eyes, your little boy will be transformed from the baby who spun around with his head on the bat, (because he loves attention), into a pitcher. Because he loves attention… still.

When you give a boy a baseball, you give him more than just a ball. You give him a sport, and a talent, and hope, and dreams, and friends, a new family, a place to learn about life, room to grow as a person where he can push his limits, and bravery, and courage and LIFE, and memories. And he will have ALL of these things, simply because you gave a boy a baseball.

Because you gave a boy a baseball, you too will develop new/lifelong friendships, developed solely from the same passion for the game and love of your team. You will root together. Also, you can count on spewing PG-13 things out of your mouths together. Because you gave a boy a baseball.

Then one day, many years from today… he will be in his room and a baseball will roll out from an old dusty bat bag underneath his bed. And he will pick it up and realize instantly that when you gave that boy a baseball, you also gave him a childhood that he would never forget. And then he will hug you, and your eyes may leak – because you realize that everything YOU gave up along the way… was worth it!

All because you gave a boy a baseball?