While I don't stop by nearly as often as I once did, I always find that when I do there are a few threads that made me really glad I did. This one certainly falls into that category.
From a parent's perspective, the game was always the vessel that one son had chosen to use as a means of developing into adulthood; and I viewed it as a very good one for him to have chosen. As he worked hard at it and developed useful skills on the field, he learned many lessons that would serve him well in a much broader environment.
Fortunately for him, his passion and love for the game, itself, never wavered; and it still serves him well as his chosen profession. However, had he chosen at any point to have left it for another line of pursuit, I would have welcomed the new path as much as I always embraced his pursuit of baseball. ...and, he would have benefited mightily along that new path from all that he had learned from his days in baseball.