"The Final Inning - My View From The Stands" (1/8)

Bryce was born in the middle of the Iowa high school softball season, June 25th, 2000.

Maelynne was a senior and Tara was a junior. Both were starters on the highly successful Grinnell High School softball team. A team that would end up that season with a coveted spot in the state tournament. Aubree and Alaina were also playing softball at the time. It was summer and the Munson girls played softball in the summer… and in the fall… and spring… and whenever they

could.

Oh… they played other sports too… but softball… softball was special. Softball was the primary sport… the preeminent sport. We paid good money for camps, clinics, pitching and hitting lessons. We made sure the girls were taking advantage of every opportunity they could to improve their softball skills in the off-season.

And it paid off. The Munson girls racked up numerous all-conference and all-state honors in the sport of softball. Each of the four had the rare opportunity to compete in the Iowa Girls High School State Tournament. Three of the four girls earned softball scholarships to college. Two of them ended up as team captains of their college teams.

Allow me to pause here to affirm something: Yes... I *AM* bragging on my kids. 😱

Softball was special. It was a family passion. No matter where the game was... it was pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes! (Hat tip to Neil Diamond)

But… back to Bryce. It was a given that he’d be a baseball player. How could he not? It was in his blood. He was a Munson…

We moved from Grinnell to Grimes, Iowa in March of 2007 and shortly thereafter, Bryce played his first season of baseball. T-ball to be more specific.

He was a lefty. Threw left… batted left. The third Munson in a row to be a south paw. Aubree, Alaina and then Bryce. Very odd, right? Some accuse me of intentionally making them left-handed. That may be true from a hitting standpoint (gives them the extra step toward first base) but certainly not throwing. That was genetics... I guess.

I would sit in my lawn chair at his games and try to honestly assess how his abilities stacked up with all the other kids. We all do that, don’t we? Compare? We want our kid to be among best ones and we hope against hope that they don’t totally suck at it.

Bryce certainly didn’t suck at baseball during this initial exposure to the game but he didn’t really do anything so spectacular that he separated himself from the group. He was at least average and probably a bit above average… at least among this group of kids.

I do remember about halfway through that first season, that Bryce started to show some boredom with attending practices and games. He would whimper a little bit and mumble something about not wanting to go. But I was (and still am) of the philosophy that, at least until a certain age… you insist that your kids suck it up and attend baseball practice or piano lessons or swimming lessons or whatever else it is that you have signed them up for. It’s about more than just the affection for the game. It’s about commitment, discipline, work ethic, exercise, human interaction, practice, friendship, teamwork, authority, improvement, achievement, failure… you know… all those things that you will eventually deal with as an adult… when the stakes are much higher. Why not get a jump-start on life by playing a sport or an instrument when you’re a kid?

A good buddy of mine once summed it up this way, "The great thing about sports is that they teach you so many life lessons and the worse thing that happens is you might lose a ball game."

I have never quite understood the parent that says about their 7 year-old, “I let him quit because he just didn’t enjoy it anymore.” That may be appropriate when he’s 14… but not 6 or 7.

Just my opinion.

Anyway… guess I got caught up in my rant. Sorry.

Due to a job change, we moved to Ohio in 2008. I moved first… in late March… while Jeana stayed in Iowa to sell our house and let Bryce and Alaina finish out the school year. It was July when they joined me in the Buckeye state.

Because of that timing and those circumstances, Bryce didn’t play any ball in 2008. His first season in Ohio was in 2009. We signed him up for recreation ball and he ended up on a team called the Aeros, which was named after the Akron Aeros, the Double A farm club for the Cleveland Indians.

This league and age group was coach pitch and so it was his first exposure to playing games where he wasn’t hitting a stationary ball, sitting on a tee. Of course, I had been pitching to him since the time he could swing a bat… so the concept wasn’t totally foreign to him.

Once again, I became that parent focused on “how does my son stack up against his peers?” And… I thought he was pretty okay on this recreation team. What I didn’t realize at this point was that the top two or three players from each team in the league would be selected to play on an all-star team. I didn’t find this out until the end of the season when Bryce’s coach told me that he had been selected. I was happy but not super surprised. But then again, had he not been selected, I wouldn’t have been super surprised at that either. I think he was a borderline selection.

Looking back… this selection to the 8U all-star team turned out to be the first of several pivotal events in the kid’s baseball career. Had this not happened, it is very likely that he may have never played more than a few years into his childhood.

I remember watching the all-star team practice in preparation for a couple of local tournaments they had signed up for and one thing became pretty clear to me. Bryce was NOT one of the better players on this team. He was certainly in the lower echelon. But… oh well. Maybe he would improve playing with better caliber players.

So… the Northwest All-Stars played in a couple tournaments. The second tournament was a thriller. By looking at the other teams, it appeared that we were outgunned but this group of all-stars battled like crazy, came back through the loser’s bracket and made it to the championship game… which we lost. Second place.

If I remember correctly, they had to play 5 or 6 games on that final day and in extreme heat.

Nobody seemed despondent after losing that championship game. Coaches, players and parents were thrilled at the gutty performance. All the players were awarded trophies. Not “participation” trophies… hard earned, second place trophies. Bryce’s first piece of meaningful hardware.

One of my favorite photos ever was a picture we snapped of Bryce in the backseat of our car, on the way home from that tournament. He was filthy from head to toe and he was sound asleep… holding his trophy.

To be continued...