WHY ROBERTSON'S AN INSPIRATION

My son is obsessed with baseball at 8 years old. He wants me to do drills with him when the game is over and I usually am forced to pitch him 50 baseballs a day on weekends just so he can “make contact” before he does his real full swing session. It’s unusual for an 8 year old. I am a baseball nut but this is ridiculous. Honestly though, I’m proud. He’s found something he’s good at and he’s doing this all on his own. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing. The last thing you want is your father or a coach screaming at you because you didn’t throw it into 2^nd base fast enough from center or you didn’t get your glove dirty enough to scoop up a grounder. What a kid needs is direction, not criticism. He's 8, not 40. We try and teach that in my house and it seems to be working.

He started playing first base and one of the coaches told me he had great instincts. “He’s good…like Teixeira good” the coach said. I smiled and said Thanks. My kids no Teixeira, but in his mind he is, and if that works for him, to get into the mindset of being instinctive and understand how the game is played, I say go for it.

(In Photo: Bryce Harper)
My son needs to have the eye black that looks like Bryce Harper and is sure to slide at least once a game, even if he doesn’t have to. We also can’t wash the uniform on a "Win" day because that would wash away the winning streak. I guess he got that from me. “We need to keep the streak alive, make sure mom doesn’t wash my uniform.” OK, that’s definitely from me, but look, baseball is a game of failure, you have to hit a little ball with a thin bat and that’s tricky if you think about it. It's why batting .300 is real good, it's why hitting .500 is amazing. You need talent, alittle luck and alittle superstition too, right?Lately, all I hear about is David Robertson, because to my son, this guy is the cat’s meow. How else do you explain his 2^nd pitching outing this past weekend, striking out 2 and getting a grounder to short for a 1,2,3 inning and a fist pump skip walking off the mound to boot. If my son needed any role model in his life, I’d say I’m OK with David Robertson. He’s a positive force on the New York Yankees and just so damn good. Plus, he's a positive person, doing things to help others for instance with High Socks for Hope, a Foundation created by he and his wife Erin to help the people in Tuscaloosa, Alabama affected by those tragic storms on April 27, 2011. It was David's hometown and now he's making a difference.

My son's about to be 9 and as I see him running out on the field with his eye black smeared all over his face and his sunflower seeds in his cheek, I wonder what the hell I created, he has a drive like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The most amazing thing is it has nothing to do with me. I just thought him the basics, I thought him that striking out alittle here and there is OK even though it stings when it happens.

I wrote WHY BASEBALL IS ALIVE AND WELL back in March. After I wrote it, Nutball Gazette sent me a comment: “Your son is Epic.” I laughed at the time, but you know what? Now that I think about it, that comment stuck with me. I feel like he is too and with David Robertson as his new inspiration, I’m OK with that…I really am.

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