The Love of the Game

My daughter Georgia is like Brett Favre when it comes to sports. That is, Georgia will continue to play the game until you physically strip the ball from her dead lifeless hand. She played seven softball games in a tournament this past weekend in Watertown. Then, in the sweltering 90 degrees sunshine this afternoon, she agreed to fill in for two of the other teams who were short of players for tonight. That will make at least 17 games of ball in ten days. She doesn’t quit.

Georgia came into softball relatively late. She didn’t start playing until she was ten. She played tackle football with the boys for three years, and then came to the sad realization that she was never going to be big enough to continue in the sport. It is a boys sport by design, unless she wanted to be a place kicker, which she did not.

The transition into softball has been interesting. She loves the team quality and she has no fear on the field. Her first summer playing 10 and under, a lot of girls got struck with the ball. The pitchers were all young and inexperienced. A lot of the kids developed a fear of the ball, and had to overcome the instinct to jump out of the batters box. After a game, another parent asked Georgia why she was never afraid of the ball .

“It’s smaller than a linebacker,” she answered with a sly smile. My kid is cool.

Because Georgia came into the sport later, she’s had to struggle to catch up. She plays both recreation league ball and competitive travel ball. In rec ball, she shines. The amount of time and practicing and coaching involved in travel ball assures that she’s going to continue to get better, because she spends so much more time playing.

In travel ball, Georgia pines for time in the infield. I am astounded at times at her resolve. She’s remarkably stubborn, she always has been. There are downsides to the self assured, strong willed child, though. Like toddler hood. That was a daily battle. But now, those same qualities that made me pull my hair out are the ones that have made her the kid who sings solo in front of a room of 300 people at her school talent show. The kid who tries for Secretary of the student council as a new sixth grader and beats out the eighth grade cheerleader, becoming the first sixth grade officer at the school. And the kid who spent nearly nine months trying to learn a cartwheel, when her kid sister got it on the second try. The first six months, the cartwheels were so ugly that even I wanted her to stop trying, but she didn’t give up. She spent years working and finally learned the back flip her sister Holly had learned at age six. Georgia wasn’t going to let that go, she was going to learn to do a backhand spring if it killed her. It took her over three years before she did one on her own. Even at age twelve, I think Georgia is one of the best examples I know of someone truly cultivating their own life.

When Georgia filled in at rec ball tonight, she only had her orange Storm t-shirt from her own team, and the other teams didn’t have any extra shirts, so she stood out on third base like a sore thumb among all the blue shirts of her temporary teammates. She didn’t seem to notice, and eventually, I don’t think anyone else did either. She caught a line drive down the third base line to end an inning with bases loaded and the crowd cheered. She got two tag outs, and was dead on with all her throws to first base.

I watched her from the stands, this strange mixing of team colors each game, and I realized that she reminded me of Brett Favre again. Not for the changing of teams, but for the way she played the game, no matter where she was playing. Because she was playing first for the love of the game. Anything else was extra.