I have to agree with BeenthereIL for the most part. I already spend $00 on booze, cigs and chasing women around, so I’m ahead of the game there. Gasoline, well, some weeks it’s hard to scrape the cash together to fill the tank. But for the most part, if you want to play a good level of baseball around here, you have to shell out some bucks.
In return, if you have the talent and make the team, you end up on a top notch team, get good coaches that TEACH the game, indoor winter workouts (a necessity here in the northeast), you play against the top competition from Maine to Florida. The costs also cover field use fees, umpires for every game, air-fare for some of the trips, baseballs, uniforms etc etc. And there are the tangible and intangible rewards of exposure by being on a high level team for a quality organization.
So why pay? Well, if your son loves baseball and is talented, it’s obvious. He’s playing the game that he wants to play. Playing rec ball where 7 out of 10 kids can’t make the throw from 3rd to first and games are walk-a-thons, well that’s no way to encourage a boy who enjoys the game and can actually play. That’s practically an active advertisement for lacrosse.
And what do I get out of the deal? I get to drive hundreds of miles to ball games and tournaments (remember the gasoline). But spending hours in the car with my son has lasting benefits and is FUN. Road Trip! A cooler of good food, a couple dozen good CDs, a map and a few fun stops along the way. That’s good stuff. So are the hotel stays, going out to eat, preparing for games, being on a road trip and watching your son grow up – how much better can it be. We’ve never had so much fun as we’ve had doing the baseball thing together. That’s a worthy investment right there. Watching him strive to play the game right, with like-minded team-mates, against teams and dads all doing the same thing we are (probably some of you) – I think that’s just great. No town rec team is gonna give us any of that.
Am I counting on it as some sort of sure-fire investment for the future? Of course not. Not in the dollars and cents world. I’ve never been one for that, sometimes to my detriment, but so what. My investment is in my kids’ well-being. And as long as my son wants to play I’ll keep shelling out - all the way to the poorhouse if that’s what it takes. But along the way, we’ve become rich in so many other ways, ways that mean more and pad the soul, not the bank account.