Jinked

We had our first (and probably our only) softball practice tonight.  Our coach-coworker brought his two young boys along.  I’d say one was about two and one four.  I do know the older of the two is in tee-ball.  A lot of people brought their kids, which was cool by me.   Anyhow…

When the girls would bat, the older boy would come on out to the field and try to catch with us, since we didn’t pose much of a threat to him.  Honestly, I’m not being sexist; it’s just that the girls on our team really can’t hit hard, that is if we hit at all.  Or so we thought.

So one of our teammates… she hit the ball pretty well.  A grounder.  Nothing too terribly hard but fast enough, and the little boy went to catch it.  He made a great stop, let me tell you, but he got beamed right in the upper arm as it bounced. I winced.

I’m standing mid-field as this happens, and all I could see was this little boy looking up to his daddy, who was pitching at the time.  The little boy started to cry, and daddy said to him, “Just rub it.  It’s okay.  You’ll be okay,” while he hugged him congratulated him on what a great stop he made.

He did not coddle him, pulling what I like to call the “Oh-my-poor-sweet-angel-do-you-have-a-boo-boo” spiel.  Nor did he belittle him for crying.  He just told him straight up that it’s okay, that he’ll be fine and then hugged him.

And what do you know?  This little four-year-old boy that got hit with a softball pretty damn hard stopped crying, nodded his head and went back into the infield to catch some more grounders.

The guys I was standing with mid-field loved it.  I did too.  If I ever were to be a parent, I would want to be just like this great daddy who was pitching softballs to people who needed a hell of a lot of practice.

Father of the year, most definitely.