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Little White Ballby Matthew Arnold Stern My friends have asked me, "Matt, why haven't you been going to that many Toastmasters meetings? Why don't you go to speech contests anymore? What's happening to you?" I tell them, "I've surrendered my life to the little white ball." The little white ball is the one with the stitches, baseball. (I've known plenty of people who surrendered to the one with all the dimples.) My son has been playing youth baseball since he was four, and each year, baseball has worked its way further and further into our lives. Now, we're in it all the way. I'm the manager of my son's team, and I'm on his Little League's board. The only way I could be more committed to baseball is to move to Boston and become a Red Sox fan. I blame my mother for this. She got me into the little white ball. She first fell in love with it when she was a kid in Cincinnati. One of her fondest memories of her dad was when he took her to Crosley Field to see the 1939 World Series. When her family moved to southern California, she changed her allegiance to the Hollywood Stars at Gilmore Field. She became a Dodger fan when they moved here, and that was the team she got me into. We spent summers at Dodger Stadium watching Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, and Tommy Lasorda. (Appropriately, the name of my son's Little League team this season is the Dodgers.) I never played that well. I was always the kid who got picked last and put out in right field. But I still loved watching the game and learned as much as I could. My brother and I played table-top baseball games, the ones with the funny shaped dice and the cards you looked up to find the results of the play. We made up our own league and managed our own teams. Those games must have helped my brother; he became a coach on his high school JV baseball team. There, he met Brett Saberhagen, who would wind up becoming a real-life baseball star. The thing I like most about baseball – then and now – is that it's something we can do as a family. We can go to games together and root for our favorite team together. Games are appointments we make as a family to be together. We also have an opportunity to become a part of a larger family of fans. Little League is like that too. The best teams become families. The players, their parents and relations, we all become united for a common goal. We can even form a family with the other teams in our division. Even though we play each other, we all have the common goal of helping our kids succeed. Furthermore, we have friends and former (and future) teammates on those other teams. Through good sportsmanship and fair play, we can make the experience a joy for everyone. When I think about this coming season as manager of my son's team, I think about the year I was area governor in Toastmasters. There were struggles and challenges, but it was mostly a very rewarding year – the most rewarding I've had so far. The greatest thing about that year was helping others succeed – even doing things that I couldn't do. I never won a district International speech contest, so I was thrilled to watch a member from one of my clubs achieve it. None of the contests I've won myself has ever matched the thrill of seeing someone who I've helped win. I'm looking forward to getting started on this new adventure on being a Little League manager. So, if you don't see me at a Toastmasters lectern, look for me in the dugout at our local Little League field. Just don't expect me to give a five-to-seven-minute speech to a group of seven- and eight-year-olds.
Related TopicsLessons from the Little White Ball Links |
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