The Right (and Wrong) Kind of Memorable

There is a moment, or a collection of moments, from a high school baseball game that has stayed with me for longer than the night of the game. Last week was my last week of umpiring for the summer, and much of it has been forgettable. Forgettable is good, generally. Forgettable means that people behaved as people should, at least most of the time, that we marched inning to inning slowly or quickly, kids maybe made memories while my partner and I facilitated, offering structure to this activity that they say is important. Memorable is often bad. Bad like the unspeakable quagmire of a display last week we had to witness from a team and a community who appears to have no adults to speak of, at least none with any contact or concern with their baseball program. That embarrassing evening, a 4 hour marathon of affronts to humanity, was not forgettable. I hope I can wash it away soon.

But it is a different evening I linger with here. A better evening. It was forgettable in most ways. I don't remember the score. I remember who won, but I won't in six months, and I know none of the players. I couldn't even tell you the first names of the kids who pitched. What I remember is the demeanor of the head coach. It's simple, really: he taught. He taught the whole game. He taught on nearly every pitch. Mistakes or successes, ahead or behind, first inning or last, he taught. He encouraged, but not the fake kind of encouragement that no one believes; instead, it was the encouragement of instruction, of saying that Hey, you said this is important to you, so I'm going to make you important to me and teach you how to do this thing. I'm going to show you the way, and I believe that you are not perfect and never will be perfect but can be better, just a little bit better, right now, and again next time, and again next time, and I'm going to keep speaking better into you so long as you're here and valuing this.

This is hard. Unspeakably hard. Few people know how hard it actually is. If you've been to high school athletics, I'm sure you've heard encouragers and teachers. For the whole game, though? It's rare. If you see it, value it. Take it in. Listen and appreciate to the job few are willing or maybe able to perform.

Full-time teaching says a few things. It says that every action matters. That each movement, each decision, is of consequence for the player and for the team. And it is. Full-time teaching says that the player himself is important. Instruction implies that improvement is both possible and important. Full-time teaching tells a player that you're not done yet, that you're not a finished product, that you never will be, that while you are not now good enough you are better than you were and you will continue on this journey during this minute, and the next one, and the next one, with a coach who sees a spectacular and unwritten future for you if you just remember all the time that you're not done yet.

It's easy to see what's wrong with youth and high school athletics today, particularly from the perspective of an umpire. I see a lot of disinterested people, not quite sure why they're doing what they're doing. I see a lot of ultra-interested people, defining this as life and not a mere part of life or a preparation and means for living well. I see money - lots and lots of money - and how many people are making it on the backs of children. I see self-promotion as the new idol, rather than self-sacrifice. Frankly, I often don't see a lot of joy. But then there are nights, nights like this one, where I get to see what's good and right about a bus-full of kids on a diamond in a town 30 miles away on a Tuesday night.

I don't think this team will ever be state champions. Conference championships will be rare enough. But what they will be are carpenters and farmers and real estate agents and fathers who will have had a time in their life when someone told them to get better today, because you matter, because what you do matters, and it matters to a whole lot more people than just yourself.

The team I described in the opening paragraph is also full of kids who are learning. But they are learning without the teaching. They are learning to act on impulse. They are learning that comedy, particularly self-deprecating and self-promoting comedy, is a lot easier than success. They are learning victimhood. And they are learning the silence of adults, the silence of coaches and parents who have decided that they are just not quite worth the effort. I am sorry for them.

I'm not sure how many people think about that when they're watching a high school baseball game or looking at scores in the paper. But I do. I've got a lot of time to think, inning after inning, mile after mile, season after season. I've got time to consider why we're all doing this - umpires and coaches and players and parents alike. And on both kinds of memorable nights, I know.