Agree 100%. There's something to be said about a kid learning how to be coachable and a good teammate. He'll go a lot further saying "whatever you need me to do coach!" than drawing lines in the sand regarding what he will and won't do.
And thank you board for presenting pretty much every argument that has been running through my head! LOL!
One clarification, he will play any position coach asks him to, without a single question, but in his mind the sitting him on the bench because he pitched is a detriment to the team. I tried to tell him that the coach understands he will have to sit if he pitches and has deemed that the best course of action. He is a math kid, so I think he is glitching because in his brain if you have 8 kids that can pitch, 3 that can catch, and 2 that can play 1B....then mathematically he does more good at Catcher and 1B than pitching and sitting. I think in some strange way he is doing a cost analysis on how his value as a player with this team is being used and it isn't making sense to him.
While talking about it his points were that it would give other kids who WANT to pitch more time, it might be a relief to coach if he told him he didn't really want to pitch so coach didn't have to worry about trying to get him into the rotation of pitchers, and if he didn't pitch he would be down to 2 gloves instead of three in his bag. To that one I had to laugh because HELLO like one glove outweighs the catcher gear?
Anyway, thanks for all the advice :-)
P.S. He adores baseball, he really does eat and breath it. He also shows zero reluctance when asked to pitch by the coach, he always just says "Yes Sir!", it's only to me that he has asked the "what if" question. You know, because I'm the parent and am supposed to know everything! *rolls eyes*