The Little League World Series baseball tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania is one of the jewels of summer, especially for boys and girls ages 11 through 13. Little League rules allow girls to play with the boys, however the teams from the around the world consist primarily of boys.
I love watching these kids play baseball because they do it for the purest reason – they love the game. Most of these kids are extremely talented and their teams have won every game in their area, district, state, region, and in some cases country. Every game has powerful hitting and tremendous defensive plays. I’m constantly amazed by what I see.
Watching the Little League World Series also is sad for me, especially since the series is annually during a time when I’m depressed anyway. The series begins a couple of weeks after Nik has gone home after spending the summer in Arizona. I’m sad because Nik never got his chance to be the ballplayer he could have been.
I don’t know if Nik would have been good enough to be one of his little league’s all-stars, or if that team would have been able to win all the games in order to get to Williamsport. What I do know is Nik never got his chance.
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| Nik heads for third during a game in 2005. |
Nik was first eligible for T-Ball at 5, and I signed him up to play in the Mooresville (Indiana) Little League. He enjoyed it and after a few games and practices, he was able to hit the ball tossed softly to him. But that was the only time he was allowed to play.
A few weeks after his season ended, I got the job offer that led me to move to Arizona. As I’ve mentioned before, Nik’s mother and I developed together the plan for me to go ahead, get our living arrangements established, and then she and Nik would join me. It was not until I got here that she told me she had “changed my mind” and she destroyed our family. Nik asked her to sign him up for little league a couple of years, but she didn’t do it, telling him the games were during the time he is supposed to be with me. That was a lie, because the little league season is in April and May. The only time he would play in June and July would be if he was an all-star, and if was, I would have happily sacrificed my time.
The reason she didn’t sign him up is she didn’t want to sit through practices and she couldn’t afford it. I don’t see how living in poverty, not getting opportunities and experiences, and living 7/8th of the year away from the primary male role model is “in the best interest of the child”, especially a boy.
Former professional baseball player and current coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks said in an interview: “Let me fail. Even if I fail, I at least had my chance. If I don’t have a chance, then I can’t succeed.”
We’ll never know if Nik could have been a good baseball player or good in any sport because he never got his chance.
