Small adjustments and unlocking luck
We all need to take more literal and metaphorical swings at life
I have three rules for my kid whenever we head to one of his baseball games.
Stay focused on the field and listen to his teammates.
Cheer your teammates on from the dugout to show them support.
Give yourself a chance and swing the bat at least once every at-bat.
The last one is probably the hardest for him. My kid has struggled with technique and hesitation in the batter’s box throughout the season. I get it. The step from 9-year-olds to 10 and 11-year-olds throwing baseballs at you can feel like going from a carnival ride rollercoaster to a major theme park, with the bonus that these kids don’t have the greatest control. Any pitch could go from perfect control to three straight to the dome. There’s also the agony of everyone in the stands giving you support but reminding you that all eyes are on you and only you for the next few pitches. So, after a round of batting practice a few weeks back, he confessed a few things. He was afraid. It was a lot of pressure to bat with people watching. He wasn’t confident he could hit the pitch. The pitchers threw fast, and there was a big chance he could get hit.
Seven games in, and he’d gotten on base via walks and getting hit by a pitch once. But he hadn’t recorded an actual hit all year and had barely made contact. I could see him playing out a game in his head, thinking he would strike out and never hit, already a sense of resignation whenever we’d pull up to a game.
I gave him the same rules above – focus, support, and swing, with the addition that I didn’t care about him striking out, but if he didn’t swing, he’d never even give himself a chance. Go down swinging. It’s what life is about.
He took a few swings during his second at-bat in the eighth game of the season. He battled, hitting two pitches foul. His demeanor changed as if, in real time, he’d unlocked an awareness of his potential. He does this great thing during at-bats that most kids never do, and he goes through the same consistent routine to prepare himself. Do you know how baseball players are weirdos with their routines in the big leagues? You want that early, too. Baseball is a patient person’s sport: you need to think more than be physical. It’s probably closer to chess than football. He struck out on that at-bat, swinging at a close pitch. But something had changed. He’d given himself a chance, a little more confidence emanating from him on the way to the dugout.
And then he cruised up for the third time, something fairly rare in a two-hour timed little league game. Other parents, very aware of Oscar’s hitting drought, cheered him on, reminding him how he swung the bat so well in his previous at-bat. Fred Again’s “Jungle” – Oscar’s walk-up song – came on and before our awesome parent DJ clicked stop, I heard a crack of the bat.
People talk a lot about the unlimited love you can have for your kids. But we don’t talk about all the other feelings that get elevated, such as pride and joy, support and encouragement. Maybe we do them with close friends, family members, and our favorite coworkers. But the sense of pride I felt in this kid just slogging away, giving himself a chance, and ultimately getting a hit was something I’d never really felt before.
After the game, he said something I would have said: “I got lucky.” He’s inquisitive, so I felt like I could be honest. I told him that was partly true. Baseball, that patient person’s sport, is one of the hardest in the world. In less than an actual second, you have to track a baseball coming at you, adjust for its trajectory, and get a bat on it, all while moving your legs, hips, arms, and eyes to make sure there’s contact made. Then you have to drop that stick and run like hell. But he wasn't swinging the bat for the better part of the season. His fears and his lack of confidence limited his chance to flex the skill, preparation, and practice and that spark of luck to get activated. “How can luck even come into play if you don’t swing?” I said.
“Yeah, I can see that,” he said.
I’ve carried this conversation for the last two weeks because I keep returning to it as a reminder that, even as we age, there’s still a lot of amazing luck out in the world to unlock. There have been times when I’ve retreated, resigned to “this is simply how it will pan out” scenarios, without stopping to think that my skill, my preparation, was all there to capture whatever luck was around me. Of course, only the good kind.
I’m hoping he gets a few more hits this season. The smile on his face after he reached first base was something I’ll never forget. It makes me a really lucky human to experience things like that. And it reminds me I can’t sit in the batter’s box and not swing either. Every day, we have a chance to make the stands cheer.
I took my Fujifilm GA645zi camera on a work trip recently. I’m not any more comfortable with film photography than I was last year when I started trying to shoot film again, but the feeling of getting scans back after development is a delight. Here are some snaps in a larger format. I still think Instagram doesn’t do some of the detail justice. Let me know what you think.
Happy Sunday.
Substack synchronicity—hitting out the park. I just wrote a note about how 'sports wouldn't exist without our brains' ability to predict'. Then I saw Anna's note, which directed me to your article.
Sometimes, luck is also about connecting and sharing. ;-)
Thanks for sharing your special moment - the photos are great.