Hats off to the ones that matters most

I would like to take a minute and say how deeply proud I am of my DD. I started thinking back 8 years. Her holding that first glove in right field (no real need to have one), the entire first summer with no hits but on base all the time (walks). She was so small. Year two-"She is too small to play-she will get hurt" this lasted until about two years ago. At the time she felt cursed-really small and left handed. Year three we found out that she could run fast. bunting to get on came into play, but to small and still left handed to play in the field. Year three also came with her love of catching. "Left handers can't be catchers." she ended up being a great catcher. She then found second base and yet again leftys don't play 2nd. This made her mad enough to figure it out and it is now her position for someone to take (for the most part some people still feel negative about this).

Last year she was talking to her grandfather and said,"don't you miss when the game was just fun when I was young. Now all these adults think they know more than I do about my abilities." This is when I knew that my DD took all that negativity to heart and it finally got to her. She is now back to the mindset of playing for the fun of playing. I missed it as well.

Looking back she was a 5 year all star, MVP ribbon at tourneys, and awesome human being. I am so proud of who she was then and what she has become. I am so happy that she chose to spend all her time with us and the field. She is going into her second year of high school and she is truly playing the game again for love not for the pressure.

Our DD's give up their summers for their entire youth and only complain a few times:lmao:

While we are all discussing what we think of these girls, please let us remember the litle girl in right field who just wanted to play and have fun. They will still be competitive for you all, still go all in for you, and get hurt but want to score the winning run for you. These years go by fast, cherrish them all by remembering your pride in them.

sometimes we forget why we started playing this game..... fun is what it should always be about . nice post

Have to laugh about the lefties. Our DD was one and we have, god forbid, an excellent left-handed catcher (to go with an excellent right-handed catcher) and a lefty pitcher who is an excellent position player at second and another lefty pitcher who is an excellent position player at first. When we played Valley Extreme Heaverly at ASA States the Head Coach said "what, you only advertised for lefties?" Just turned out that way and I hope we never gave any of them reason to think being a lefty was a disadvantage. And I hope someday to get to know those Valley Extreme coaches better. They seemed like really great guys.

We knew as parents that her attempting to perfect her 2nd base and catcher skills as a lefty was a risk back then, but how do you stop drive like that? I appreciate her determination, but to be honest I think she had the drive because someone told her she couldn't do it. Whatever it was she did it and I couldn't be more proud. Now she has her love of the sport back and is just enjoying being on the field.

nice post.
when focusing on the final destination too much we miss the ride.
don't miss the ride.

There must have been some good coaches to respect her drive to do it and give her the chances. I haven't had that pleasure.

The coaches weren't always supportive and the crying was intense. She also knew that if they put her in, she had better not make one error. When she did that, they had no choice but to give her the nod. It was tough, but 5 years of determinination paid off. I just feel bad that she had to go through it. She is still under the microscope and probably always will be. This past season she was playing 2nd base and made a great play-the field ump and 1st base coach was amazed and said "I have never seen that." She laughed and told me later that she felt like a rare zoo animal that everyone wanted to go see.