I do feel bad for the kid as I see the grind and not trying come out as baseball gauche, but this is a game of failure and all the remarkable advances (maturity, skills, wisdom) in my kid (me too) were from those beautiful failures. I do admit as a parent I get bothered by the repeat failure (not learning) and of course things out of my kid's control. For example, he was benched last night (he can only DH) as the roster is 28+ deep and I get the coach wanted to try different players. The team could not score runs and was down 4-2 late in the game. There was pinch opportunity with 2 out and runners on 1&2. The kid was getting ready to pinch hit then gets subbed because it was a LH pitcher and the coach wanted a L/R match up. Unfortunately that plan did not work and the next inning the team falls apart and gives up a lot of runs. On the ride home he was vented he was annoyed because what was proven at tryouts, BP and past performances against LH pitching and their statements he was their team's best hitter, he was passed over an arcane thought process. I told him all he can do is keep preparing and not dwell on the coach's process as that is a large and complex roster and maybe he did want to see what the other players had to offer. I tried a version of below on him and it probably work a little as soon as we got home he grabbed a quick bite and we hit for an hour. He felt better afterwards until he realized how many hours of school work was ahead of him.
