There are a lot of thoughts floating around my head as my eight-year-old son grows more interested in baseball.
I loved baseball as a kid. I love it now. In some ways, my son and I are headed down the exact road one would have expected for us.
We play catch. I get to play catch with him. We watch games together. He asks me questions. I try to answer and realize how hard it is to explain baseball.
There’s a lot of joy there.
I also see the anguish. It’s already there, the pain and disappointment and close calls that don’t go your way. He is seeing them in Little League and as a fan. There are tears when he makes an out. Dismay and confusion when he can’t throw the ball where he wants to.
There’s a lot of sadness there, too.
As if all of that weren’t complicated enough, I’m reading about the negotiations for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement for Major League Baseball. Kids like him will inevitably start to hear chatter about revenue sharing and salary caps and salary floors and a potential work stoppage.
I was confused often enough trying to explain the rules when a pitcher works from the stretch. I don’t think I have what it takes to explain the economics of Major League Baseball.
Don’t get me wrong. I love it that he loves baseball. I just find there is a lot of confusion that swirls around the joy and the storybook moments of playing catch in the yard.
I was thinking about all of this when I heard some foundational wisdom that I plan to fall back on in the weeks, months, and years ahead, for as long as my son likes baseball: “don’t take this game too seriously.”
And that wisdom, naturally, was spoken by Gary Busey.
Today:
- Having fun watching and playing baseball
- Pro wrestling to help kids read
- Odds and ends
I’m glad you’re here.
A movie that definitely holds up
I watched Rookie of the Year this week. I’ve seen it many times, I don’t know how many. My son has now seen it for the first time.
He loved it. “Pitcher has a big butt,” “funky butt loving,” and so on. The kids are funny. The baseball scenes are entertaining. I didn’t doubt that it would be funny. But it’s got some other aspects to dig into as well.
For one thing, it predicted the world of 2026 with shocking accuracy. A bunch of men trying to make money for doing nothing, kids ignored while those men are on their bullshit, and a woman who understands what actually matters and has to clean everything up.
Watching as an adult made me appreciate Mary, Henry’s mom, as the obvious hero of the movie.
It also made me appreciate a scene where Chet Stedman, the pitcher known as “the Rocket” and portrayed by Gary Busey, talks to Henry about the cruel business of baseball. Having just learned that the Cubs will release him at the end of the season, Stedman tells Henry, “don’t take this game too seriously.”
His advice is more along the lines of not trusting management. There’s wisdom there. But there’s also the simple wisdom for a kid watching a movie about a kid playing baseball: don’t take it too seriously.
Ups and downs at Coors Field
In the context of my son being obsessed with baseball in the same way I was as a kid, we went with my sister to Sunday afternoon’s game for the Colorado Rockies.
We put some work into the plan, because there were a few kid-friendly offerings for the game. For one thing, the first 15,000 fans got a Dinger bobble head. We were among the first 15,000, and we got our Dingers. I’m sure glad we did, because it was kind of downhill from there.
Our tickets said that “players would be available along the first baseline” for autographs one hour before the game. Silly me, I was visualizing the opportunity to find a spot near the field and flag down players as they moved through. We grabbed a Rockies baseball and a pen and planned for something like that scenario.
Instead, there were only three players available: Sterlin Thompson, Seth Halvorsen, and Blas Castaño. A letdown already, and then we learned that there was a separate line for each player. We were in the line for Blas.
I’ll spare you the beat by beat, but here’s the gist: two of those guys were more than 10 minutes late, we tried switching lines twice, and we got no autographs.
There was the first disappointment. But hey, we were at a baseball game. It was all good.
Our seats were in the right field bleachers. Troy Johnston, one of favorite players on the current Rockies roster, played right field. He threw a ball to a kid in the stands before each home half inning.
As eight-year-olds do, my kid jumped up and down and yelled. At one point, it looked like Johnston had him lined up for a toss. But it never happened. Even with that one being a long shot, and with some conversations to set expectations accordingly, there was the second disappointment.
But hey, we were at a baseball game.
Hunter Goodman saves the day
We were at two disappointments before we even got to the outcome on the field. The Milwaukee Brewers are in first place. The Rockies are in last place. Given where the state of these two teams, then, the game went according to script.
The Brewers mashed extra base hits and pitched better and beat the Rockies 12-4. At least we had a lot of time to resign ourselves to the course of this particular contest.
It was still fun, of course. But I wanted another win for my son, one more nugget or moment that he would be excited to remember.
It just so happens that he had just announced Hunter Goodman as his favorite player on the Rockies. And before his game concluded, Goodman blasted a home run to center field.
It would be easy to take the fun out of that home run: It didn’t matter. They lost anyway. They’re still in last place. And so on.
But hey, we were at a baseball game. And we got to see one of our favorite players hit a home run. We talked about it all afternoon. It was fun.
It’s like I tell him, both as a young player and as a fan: this is all supposed to be for fun. Even with all of the disappointment baked into baseball, in the end, it should be about joy.
Or, as the Rocket put it: don’t take this game too seriously.
Pro wrestling, force for good
I am prepared for and at peace with the skepticism directed my way when people learn that I am a pro wrestling fan. I always say that I get it, that I like it anyway, and that I especially like the stories.
As a matter of fact, it can be a way to engage the storytelling part of someone’s brain, especially for people who aren’t interested in or don’t feel connected to traditional media for stories.
I like that, and so do these guys: professional wrestlers using matches at local libraries to get people into reading.
Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
I love so much about that story.
Odds and ends
🍊Everyone is excited about the New York Knicks playing a home game in Madison Square Garden. And so, of course, Donald Trump is trying to ruin it.
🪽There’s a team making a strong case as the saddest in all of professional sports. It’s a Major League Baseball team, but it’s not the Rockies! Just another reason for a little bit of hope that the Rockies aren’t completely hopeless.
Hayden Kane
💰Speaking of Donald Trump ruining things, he favors a hard salary cap as Major League Baseball barrels towards a potential work stoppage. He’s siding with asshole billionaires, who would have guessed?
Let’s wrap up with a look at Lucha Libro in action.
Be like those guys. Find an appropriate outlet for your feelings, be yourself, and read a book. Have a great week.
