My kid hung up his cleats two weeks ago. As he decided not to play college ball (more on that later) his career ended with our playoff loss.
Overall he had a very good HS career. Ended with a BA somewhere in the .320+ range, if not higher. His team went 87-31 overall from Frosh through Sr. year. We won the summer HS league championship our Soph year, and ran up to the Semi’s our Sr year. Lots of hope riding on this team during the spring season this year. Unfortunately we came up short in the regional finals. Great game. It went 11 innings with us loosing in the bottom of the inning 1-0. 2 outs runner on 2nd 3-2 count, our pitcher through a really good pitch, the batter caught it on the end of the bat and put it up over 2nd base. Our CF made a good play and beat the runner home with the throw but was about 2 feet up the 1st baseline. Could not have asked the kids to play any better. If we would have gone another inning we probably would have won the game as they are out of pitching and we still had a few pitchers left. Got to give it to both teams, neither of them wanted to see their seasons end.
Right now I probably miss going to the field a little more then my kid. We went to watch the sectional final that we would have played in had we continued on. It’s a very different perspective if you don’t really have any ties to the game. I really enjoyed watching the game with my son. Now its on to trying to figure out how to use the free time I’m going to have in a couple of months when both kids are away at school. I’m trying to decide between learning to play the guitar (I have no musical ability) and learning to paint by watching Bob Ross videos on youtube.
I had put out a post over a year ago. My son made the decision to not play college ball during the winter between his Sophomore and Junior year. At that time he was starting to hear from some lower level D1 schools. Some were schools not from the power 5, but he did hear from a couple of schools from larger conferences who pretty much end the season near the bottom of the conference. It was a very thought-out decision, and after talking with him one I fully supported. When he made the decision we let a couple of schools know. These were schools that he had more then a passing talk with. The responses from the schools were interesting. One of them pretty much just hung up on him. Another said they understood his decision, but if he changed his mind to let them know.
As we progressed through the summer between Jr and Sr year he did not do any showcasing. Based on previous showcasing, and video publicity, he did start to hear from a lot of D3’s. He pretty much ignored any contact. As we progressed through the season this year, he heard back from a couple of the D1’s he was talking to. One of them peaked his interest some as it was high on his list of schools he wanted to attend. Probably number 3 on the list. He was accepted at his number 1 choice by this time. The school was a lower level D1 school with a good sports tradition. Their baseball team sits in the middle of the pack in their division. He talked with them for a couple of days. In the end both he and the school decided it was not what each other were looking for. They saw him as a pitcher a while back (hitting about 80+ as a soph, 6'4" 185lbs). He stopped pitching right after they saw him. They were really looking for a LHP while he is a righty. They figured they would check in with him to see if his velo improved any. Knowing he was a RHP, but they were having trouble landing a LHP they liked. He had stopped pitching shortly after they saw him. Our HS team was loaded with pitchers. 4 out of our 6 Sr pitchers are playing in college. 1 at an SEC school, the others at various levels, and at least 1 of the other pitcher could play if they wanted to. He received more playing time as a fielder then a pitcher.
Fast forward to yesterday. I was talking with him and surprised to find out that he has had a couple of calls/texts/emails from a couple of coaches (D1) in the last couple of days. It appears that a few schools are scrambling to fill in a couple of positions due to kids either de-committing, or going into the draft. One of these is particularly intriguing as it’s my Alma matter. He has no interest in pursuing these opportunities, as he has no interest in the schools themselves.
He’s on the fence about club ball. Though he mentioned yesterday that he might try walking on at the school he is going to. They did show some very minor interest a while ago, but he never followed up. He has a good friend on their team. I doubt he will, or it will pan out, but you never know.
Now that we are a couple of weeks removed from the craziness of the game, I am really enjoying just spending time with my kid. Though I think I mostly annoy him…
