Shallow | Center

What Do You Do When Your Shortstop Is Thinking About 'Hello Kitty'?

After running my first two practices as coach of my daughter's t-ball team, I'm trying to figure out with whom I can empathize more: her kindergarten teacher or Charlie Manuel.

Would it clarify matters to point out that we're talking about 10 5- and 6-year-old girls here? No, I didn't think so.

I played six years of organized baseball as a kid, and watched every practice and game of last year's t-ball and soccer seasons, but nothing prepared me for being the guy standing at first base and leading everyone in stretching. I thought holding one kindergartener's attention for more than two minutes was tough; a whole team's worth is damn near impossible. And while our girls did great hitting off the tee and catching grounders, and you can't stop them from running around the bases, by far the most enthusiastic reaction came when I unveiled our purple tie-dyed uniforms. Sadly, no one asked me to explain the infield fly rule.

That said, I'm having a blast with it. The girls are sweet and very interested in learning and trying, and as a coach, can you ask for anything more? Hell, I don't even mind that they leave runners on base. S|C

Tags: t-ball, coaching

The Power of Parenthood

A Daughter’s Innocent Questions, a Father’s Life-Changing Answers

LAST SUNDAY I flipped on the Vikings-Giants game, and my 6-year-old, as is her custom, started peppering me with questions. They were the usual: Who’s playing? Which team is wearing the white and purple uniforms? Which one the blue and gray? And then the kicker: Who do we want to win?

In that moment I realized the immense power I hold as a father. I’ve inculcated her with enough sports savvy to know that when a Philadelphia team is playing, that’s whom she roots for. But when both teams are out of town, I get the chance to shape lifelong loving and loathing of teams for whatever rationale I care to come up with. I can turn her into the only kid in her dorm with Dallas Stars and Cleveland Indians posters on her wall, just because. I can foster a visceral hatred of the Arizona Cardinals and the Sacramento Kings, just because.

(In Sunday’s case I told her the truth -- we were to root for the Vikings because the Eagles were chasing the Giants in the wild-card race, not that I needed a reason to wish a loss on New York.)

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. And so I will never tell her to root for the Mets, the (football) Giants, the (hockey) Rangers, the Celtics, or the Lakers.

Well, unless there are playoff implications for our guys. S|C

Complete-Game Victory

THREE YEARS ago, the then-youngest member of the Shallow Center household took in her first ballgame and made it through just one inning -- albeit a long inning -- before we had to cart her home to bed. Since then I've continued to take her to a game or two a year, and she's slowly been building up her ballpark stamina. Yesterday, I'm proud to say, she made it through all nine innings of the Phillies' 5-1 win over Pittsburgh. I will grant you that food -- a hot dog, a soft pretzel, a chocolate ice cream cone with sprinkles, a bottle of lemonade -- played a large role in the amount of fun she had, but she also kept her head in the game to a reasonable degree. She asked about the score often, she clapped and cheered wildly when the Phillies scored, and she was completely psyched when Jose Mesa (!) recorded the final out. If any of you childless readers have ever wondered whether you could have fun with a 5-year-old, I'm here to tell you that the answer is an emphatic yes.

Bet He Leaves the Seat Up, Too

AS AN engaged parent, I try to monitor the media my children take in and break down the messages they contain. This is not an issue for the 5-month-old, who's too young to be much of a consumer of anything at this point, except for what she's fed, but the 5-year-old watches TV, is read to often, listens to music, and plays games on her PC. And so after this morning's episode of Sesame Street, I'm trying to figure out how to break the news to her that Ernie is kind of, well, a dick. Twice this episode, he awoke a sleeping Bert -- first by singing to him, then by playing his bugle -- in the middle of the night, then went to sleep himself, leaving his "old buddy" wide-eyed and trembling. And that's just today -- in nearly every episode, we see Bert minding his own business, reading a book, say, only to have Ernie barrel into his life, flap his gums incessantly, and annoy Bert to the point of deserving a serious beat-down. Some friend -- he's like that roommate in college who's always telling you "lighten up" and "have fun for once," when all you want is two hours to write a paper so that you don't flunk out. One day Ernie is going to "move away," and then, years later, after Bert has gone off to the great Muppet Show in the sky, someone's going to find a bunch of tiny orange felt chunks in Bert's freezer. And no one who knew the two of them will be surprised.