It was the year 2000 and I was a freshman in high school. I was dating the first guy that I actually spent a meaningful amount of time with outside of school, and he had just invited me to join him at his friend’s house to watch baseball. I figured it would be a great chance to get to know his friends and spend time with him. But I wasn’t expecting to fall in love that night.
No, I don’t mean with him, and no, not with one of his friends either (outside of the platonic variety of course). I’m talking about finding myself falling for baseball. I didn’t even see it coming. But that’s exactly what happened over the week spanning from Saturday October 21st to Thursday the 26th!
Who could blame a gal for falling for the Yankees that year? After all, that week hosted the first subway series since 1956 – which ended up being one of the most epic and longest World Series of all time. Sitting in that room of half Yankees and half Mets fans, with one being the person that I was looking for any excuse to sit next to for a little while longer, I caught feelings for the Yankees too. When the first game went to the 12th and ended with a walk-off single for the Yankees, I had gotten three whole extra innings to hold his hand and the excitement of a win to boot!
The friendly and hilarious banter between him and his friends, combined with my parents being pleased that I was finally going to start watching baseball made for a great night. I was walking on clouds all the way through the series. I’m still not sure how I convinced my mom to let me stay to watch the whole games, but I’m pretty sure I managed to secure a ride home and that was enough to seal the deal.
Baseball Had Been There, But I Hadn’t Been Ready Yet
At the time, I was still playing softball, but I was on my way to being done with it. I was frustrated with how my growth was stalling and was struggling to get meaningful additional reps in to get better as a catcher. It’s all I wanted to be. I loved catching, but I was quickly being lapped in skills by a future teammate that would push me to the pine once we no longer were on separate teams when we moved to JV that spring.
My dad was always telling me to watch more baseball to get a better baseball IQ, but he was always watching golf, so it’s not like I was going to have someone to chat about the game with. Watching it alone didn’t sound like much fun either. I honestly felt like every time I had turned on baseball just to learn, nothing was really happening. Nothing exciting at least. Without someone to watch it with, it wasn’t going to happen.
I also didn’t watch much TV, still don’t, but the 2000 World Series managed to change my opinion on the whole “baseball is boring” thing, and boy am I glad it did! Today, one of the few things you’ll find me watching TV for is baseball. It’s a tradition that I carried with me through other relationships until I finally found my soulmate and husband, Brian, the pitcher key to my catcher’s heart.
I’m sure many of our friends would agree that he is one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to baseball. He actually has an incredible acumen for basketball and football too. Anything that he spent meaningful time playing, he has a lot of wisdom to share about. I have come to find that much of this wisdom was imparted to him by coaches that cared deeply and were also very knowledgeable themselves. The rest he has gathered himself over the years of watching games and reading all about his favorite team, you guessed it, the Yankees.
Sadly, as many women my age can attest to, we didn’t exactly have the level of coaching that the boys got when we were younger. I still think the majority of coaching for girls is substandard to that of the boys in almost any sport at the lower levels. I know it’s vastly improved in some places, but from what I have seen across multiple organizations and locations, there’s still a great deal of room to go before coaching for girls achieves parity to that of boys in terms of quality.
The Ball That Actually Fit
Speaking of parity, why did women with smaller hands than men, on average, get the larger ball? I’ll dive into that in a later article, I’ll link it here, but for now, let’s just focus on the fact that I am a small human. Even today as a grown adult, I feel some days like I’m too small for life. At a whopping 5’2.5” (yeah, I earned that half), almost everything that “should” fit me because I’m an adult is uncomfortable at best and at worst, doesn’t work for me at all.
There are a few advantages to being on the shorter side though:
- Smaller strike zone when at the plate (tehe)
- Closer to the ground if I fall
- I’m able to fit into kid’s catchers gear (more to come on this core memory later)
Other than that, I can’t think of many ways that being smaller makes me more well suited to living in the world. That’s why it should come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that when I got ahold of a baseball and had time to explore how much better it fit in my hand, that I fell in love all over again.
Baseball seems to have that effect on people. No one really falls in love with it once and is done. There are so many different ways to love it that we get to fall again and again. Like when you get to fall in love with it as you watch your children fall in love with it too. Or how stepping into coaching has you fall in love with the game in a whole new way.
Falling in Love, Again and Again
When my husband and I started coaching together, after I let him have all the fun for a bit first, I took great pleasure in every catch he and I would have. With or without our boys. Actually, as time went on, it became a sacred pre-game ritual for us to have a catch with one another. This started because we were coaching an 8U team that was coach-pitch and he was our pitcher. I had to make sure his arm was loose and ready to go before each game. But the ritual carried into the higher levels because the time to connect with one another, get our arms ready for practice, get aligned on last minute details if needed, and model what we wanted to see from our players, combined with the fun of catching his incredible knuckleball, it was the perfect way to start each of our coaching sessions grounded, connected with our own internal state, and also that of each other.
Brian has always been willing to share his depth of knowledge with me. He has never treated me like “just a girl” or someone who wouldn’t understand. While watching games, I could ask basically anything, no matter how silly the question was, and get a great answer that was usually accompanied by examples and stories and a search for a video to support his answer. He’s a natural and gifted educator, even though he never stepped foot inside a classroom in that capacity. He easily helps people understand things without making them feel dumb for not knowing them to begin with. The joy that he takes in getting to share of himself is easily one of the things I love the most about him. But the list certainly doesn’t end there.
Once we were coaching, the same applied. But not only was he able to share with me, but he was always willing to listen to what I had to say as well. My background in STEM, teaching, and leading teams gave me strong, and well researched, opinions about coaching philosophy and player psychology. Brian always listened to my perspectives on organization and leadership. We worked hard together over the years that we coached to get better as coaches and have been continuing to work hard to bring the best of what we know and find to our boys.
What Coaching Each Other and Ourselves Has Taught Us
Our drive to be better today than yesterday stems from a relentless drive that I have for self-improvement. I am a life-long learner. If I am not learning something, I’m probably not feeling my best. Learning and growing is essential to who I am as a person. And nothing is better than being able to share what I have learned with someone interested in it right away. My husband is always my first go-to for those new learnings. This project, however, gives me the perfect outlet to tell more people other than just him, which is amazing. I’m grateful that Brian shares this drive and has been on his own parallel mission to be the best version of himself for our boys and for me. The reciprocity of our growth journeys has made them positive feedback loops that continue to drive us both forward. I couldn’t have ended up with anyone more well matched to me than him.
I’m a much better catcher today than I was 20 years ago. And even though I wish I had access to the internet that the kids are growing up with today to have been able to learn so much more about catching fundamentals, I wouldn’t change a thing about my trajectory up to now.
Everything that has transpired in my life, every person I have loved and that has loved me, every set back, every degree and job, has led me to this project. For that, I am grateful beyond measure.
We are going to help so many people to go further in their baseball careers than they otherwise might have. It’s a gift to help other coaches that are just starting their career by volunteering for the first time to avoid some of the mistakes that we made early on and to help connect them to resources in an easy-to-understand way that includes every one of them – regardless of gender or experience level. There is so much more to come. I hope you’ll join us in this journey and share your love for baseball with us too. Who knows, maybe, you’ll even fall in love with it in a new way that you didn’t see coming either.
With love and laces,
