My son’s “spring” little league season ended on September 1st. They won the championship and I was glad for them. But I felt a bit of melancholy about it ending too. Would I have felt that way without the shadow of Covid over our summer? I doubt it. This baseball season felt so long but I still didn’t want it to end.
The whole summer was strange. “Spring” baseball turned into summer baseball because that’s when it was decided that it was safe to play. I was the only parent who stayed to watch the first practice. How could I have been the only parent who wanted to see what Covid baseball practice would look like? How could I have been the only parent who wanted to know if these coaches were going to take the Covid precautions seriously? I was sitting there texting different friends, asking these questions. One of my friends, who was also a coach in the same league, responded that there were all kinds of new rules due to Covid and he would be happy to explain it to me. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I responded back, “rules are only good if people follow them”.
Once I got used to letting my kid play baseball during Coronamageddon, it became the lifeline that got me through this unusual summer. We still had to deal with people not wearing masks at the games. It was usually just us and one other family wearing masks. And even one of the umpires didn’t wear a mask. But the good that this little league season did for our summer far outweighed the frustration. It would be such a strange summer. So many of our usual activities were unattainable. So much confusion. Information was constantly changing. We typically go to the beach as much as possible but even that wasn’t going to happen like normal this summer as towns put restrictions on who was allowed at their beaches and how many people would be allowed at the beach at the same time.
So instead of the beach and our other normal summer activities we had little league. We had many practices. We played catch in our yard. My son really likes outfield and on many of his previous teams the outfielders were definitely neglected during practices. Not on this team. Everyone did the same drills and even though my son didn’t love it, he learned second base and third base and would play both positions in games as well as playing outfield.
Then the games started. Major League Baseball would eventually start too. We bought the Yankees season on the MLB app. There were no concerts to go to and not really any other sporting events to watch on TV or to see in person so our summer was about little league and the Yankees. The rhythm of our summer was created by the baseball schedule. It was usually two games per week and probably a practice fit in too. And because of the condensed MLB season, there was a Yankees game on almost every night (except when they got postponed due to a positive Covid test).
Besides having events scheduled on our calendar and live entertainment to attend, this season was a light in the Covid Darkness on a more personal level. My son grew on and off the field. I enjoy sports for so many reasons and a lot of them are about how sports relate to things off the field. How the lessons we learn in sports translate to other aspects of life. This was a good season of growth to witness and because there was so little else going on, I got to witness a lot of it.
And then it ended and so did the summer. When the season ended we were left to face the reality of school and how that would play out. We chose to keep our kids home. It’s great to have so much time as a family while they’re doing school at home, but the flip side is that we get almost no breaks from each other. Time apart is good for any relationship. Being stuck with each other all the time lowers our threshold for frustration and annoyance. With school comes other concerns. Will they even learn much from home? Will they be self-sufficient students? What will we do when they want to play with a kid who is attending school?
And the end of the little league season meant that the season was changing. Summer was slipping into Fall and everything was changing the way it does every year. For me, it also meant that I was about to become painfully busy at work. Our whole vibe was about to change.
But I am grateful for the summer little league season. It got me through this Covid-stained summer.