My 11U All Star team was feeling confident coming off a super-exciting win in Game 1 as we faced off against a strong team from PVLL on Saturday.
We battled through 2 innings and entered the 3rd inning tied 0-0; it was shaping up to be a good game.
And then everything that could go wrong, did.
A couple guys reached based, followed by a 3-run homerun. No big deal; this was the exact same situation we were in Game 1 when we came back from a 4-0 deficit.
But this time, the wheels came off after the home run.
Walks, errors, wild pitches, more hits.
It took us 2 pitchers and 70+ pitches to get out of the inning. Score: 11-0.
11 runs. In 1 inning.
What can you say to group of kids after that happens?
I called a rare in-game team meeting outside the dugout, and was just honest with them.
“Look, that inning was no fun. But we can’t do anything about it now. So let’s keep being competitive at the plate, let’s keep cheering for each other from the dugout, let’s continue to respect the game (and ourselves) by playing hard. Shoulders back and chins up until the last out.”
And we did just that. We competed until the game ended.
There was no miraculous comeback. No Hollywood ending. But also, no slammed bats or tossed helmets. No arguing with the umpire. No tears in the dugout. None of the emotional outbursts that you might usually see from a group of kids after the worst inning of their entire year, in their biggest game of the year.
I know they cared. I know they were upset. But I was really proud of how they handled themselves.
We had an awful inning. It’s part of sports.
Sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you’re the windshield.
The Dodgers beat the Padres 15-3 over the weekend.
A couple days ago, the White Sox beat the Royals 22-1.
It’s baseball. And games like that don’t just happen in Little League; they happen at all levels.
I’ve been around sports long enough to know this, but kids don’t have as much experience with the highs and lows of competition.
After shaking hands with the other team, my message in our post-game meeting was simple; “One bad inning does not define us as a team. Everything that was true before the game about how hard you’ve worked, how prepared you were, how good you are as ballplayers, and proud I am of how you’ve handled yourself for the past 3+ weeks is all still true. 20 awful minutes can’t change that. The only thing we can do now is learn from it and get back on the horse at practice this week to prepare for our next game.”
Sure, they were disappointed; I would be worried if they weren’t!
But I didn’t see tears, I didn’t see dejection. I saw determination.
As long as these boys continue playing sports, there will be days like they had on Saturday.
And certainly when they get older, there will be days when “life” kicks their butt too.
That’s inevitable.
Everyone gets knocked down sometimes. How you respond is what matters.
And this is why youth sports is such an amazing tool to develop serious life skills during a fundamental unserious activity.
Baseball is just a game. A game.
No matter how All Stars ends for our team on the scoreboard, whether we lose our next game or win it all, the boys will have practiced how to be resilient, stay positive in the face adversity, support each other, and respect their community in an arena that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things; Little League is just kids playing a game for fun.
And if they struggle while learning those lessons now, great! Childhood is the perfect time to make mistakes…when the stakes are low. This is when growth should happen…when the “failures” have no real consequences.
If one of my players threw his helmet in frustration or slammed his bat after a strikeout, there would be consequences. Instant benching. Holding kids accountable is how you show you care about them.
That’s not always easy to do as a parent or coach, but it’s essential to their growth. That’s how kids learn. At the end of the day, does getting benched in a Little League matter at all? Of course not.
But if that same (hypothetical) kid who had trouble controlling his emotions on the field, through his experience in Little League learns how to control his emotions when he gets frustrated as an adult and then doesn’t, for example, lash out a boss or a co-worker or a friend, when the consequences are real, that’s a huge win.
Youth sports, when done right, is the “Nerf” version of real life.
A 11-run inning is just a bad few minutes of baseball. That’s all. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got fired. Nobody ruined a relationship. It’s just a game.
But learning from it in order to build tools for adulthood when “life” happens? That’s the good stuff.
We’ll be back at it on Thursday, ready to rock…
PLAY HARD, HAVE FUN!