He’s wearing Yogi Berra’s number on his little Yankees uniform, and at 6, he is more athletic than I ever was.  He’s something else, y’all.  That kid got out there on that field and he played his heart out.  It wasn’t like me running myself into the ground to be as good as the worst kid on the team.  It was entirely different. 

Thor appears to be middle of the pack for his team.  He hits well, he throws well, and he’ll figure out the catching.  He’s better at catching this week, than he was last week.  But he hits really well.  And he hustles. 

He was a little foggy on the rules, so when he started off playing 3rd base, he kept running to 1st, trying to field the balls that were headed that way.  In the second inning, they moved him to 1st base, and he did better.  He understood that concept a little more.  When they moved him to Shortstop in the 3rd (and final) inning, he made a spectacular play that would have resulted in an out, if there were outs in T-ball.  Uhm…there are no outs in T-ball.  There are also no scores.  I guess this is great for the kids, and I’m not saying a word to Thor about it, but I like having Winners and Losers.  Ha!

It was fun to watch how into the game Thor was.  He was just a jumping bean of focused energy the entire time.  Never took his eyes off that ball, but was working so hard to make a play.  Focus.  You could see it in his face, and you could see he felt like a big, big man.  He was DOING something.  And he followed the coach around like a shadow before the game started.

What I liked best was this:  When the coaches worked with him on where he should be when playing his positions, he didn’t seem to mind.  He just agreed (then forgot immediately, and had to be reminded) to follow their instructions and got right back down into his crouch, waiting on that ball.  You guys, I told Bryan that we’d done something right.

See, if I had been wearing that number 8 at age 6 (or even 16), and the coach had had to tell me I wasn’t playing my position properly, I’d have been so upset and mortified that I had done something wrong, that I wouldn’t have been able to play anymore.  I would have been physically sick to my stomach at having made a mistake in front of so many people, and I probably would have cried right there.  I had no self-confidence–I faked self-confidence very well, but I had zero confidence in my ability to correct mid-play and move on.  My son has that!  I’ve met a parenting goal!  I could have Snoopy danced right there in the bleachers realizing that he didn’t give a rip about who was watching, or what he’d done incorrectly, only on improving and playing better, and winning that game.

He was focused, confident, and determined to do everything in his power to bring home a win.  That meant two things to him:  1.  Keep the other team from scoring, 2.  Make a home run.

I’m wondering when he’s going to figure out and realize that everyone scores, and everyone gets to run all the bases at some point?  Until then, I’m just enjoying this.