One of my duties as a Little League president is to give a speech at the Opening Day ceremony. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be rained out for the second Saturday in a row. So, we had to cancel the ceremony. Here is what I would have said to the parents of Saddleback Little League if we had an opening ceremony. Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged baseball
What I would have said
Mar 5
Calling All Angels
Jan 21
This year, my son’s Little League team is the Angels. Although I am an Orange County resident, there is a lot more to my relationship with the Angels than it just being the team in our community.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, so the Dodgers became my ball club. The Angels in the sixties and seventies were second fiddle. They were like the Clippers of baseball but with a much better owner. Furthermore, my mom was a Hollywood Stars fan growing up. The old Los Angeles Angels of the PCL were the Stars’ hated rivals. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not sure how happy Dave Winfield would be to see his book Making the Play: How to Get the Best of Baseball Back
One of them is the role parents have in encouraging children to enjoy and play baseball. Our family considers baseball an heirloom, passed on from one generation to another. The times my mom took my brother and me to the ballpark or watching games on TV were special moments we shared together. I’ve certainly enjoyed the times I played catch with my son. (We even played while we were in line overnight for a Black Friday sale. Of course, we went to a vacant part of the parking lot.) But the good parents do can be ruined if they get overinvolved or if they don’t conduct themselves properly while watching or coaching their kids’ games. There have been a number of times when my son had to rein in my excitement at ball games. Read the rest of this entry »
A Jewish writer gets roped into leading his son’s troubled youth baseball league. That’s the story of The Opposite Field: A Memoir
It must be a thing with us Jewish writers taking charge of our children’s youth baseball teams (especially those of us who didn’t have a good relationship with our father) and then writing memoirs about it. I’ve read a few of those books, but they left me flat. They seemed a bit too tidy, and they wrapped up with some uplifting “life lesson.” In The Opposite Field, Jesse bares himself completely. He writes honestly about his own doubts and failings, as well as the misdeeds and conflicts with others. Read the rest of this entry »
It was a day of baseball that was both thrilling and frustrating. My son’s Winterball team played its best game this season, but the other team seemed to do better. So, when I opened my weekly newsletter from Aish.com, a story about the Jewish perspective on winning caught my attention. Read the rest of this entry »
