One Last Time

Windmill,

Congrats to your son.

Turn those numbers around and my money says that your son would not be the ballplayer or the man he is today. Many times success breeds complacency and hard times develops character. I know what direction I would want to send my son off to college with.

Your post is a gentle reminder to me again, how quickly time marches on.
I remember son's last HS ball game, like it was yesterday (2 years now). I live around the corner from his HS and everday when I pass I always manage to try to look out to the field to see what is going on. I do miss those days at the HS ballfield.
We, as parents of athletes, make great sacrifices, not just with our credit cards or bank accounts but for a great part of our lives that we have spent helping to support our players passion, goals and dreams. I was thinking about this the other day on the way home from South Carolina, that our chances to watch son play in person are far and few between and very thankful for the person or persons who came up Gametracker, Live stats and video streaming . Without that, we would not have been able to enjoy as much as we have.

When saying goodbye to son he thanked us for coming and for being there, but I also thanked him, for giving us memories we would have not had otherwise. As we get on in years, for me, it is all about what he has done for us, not what we have done for him.
As always, enjoy as much as you can, whenever you can, because before you know it our players at sometime either go on to play the game or stop. For them no matter where they leave off, it is a new beginning, for us an end, with memories that we would not have had otherwise because our sons truly loved the game and played as long as they could, this great game of baseball.

Best of luck to your son and for all of the websters sons who will be graduating HS and college.

TPM:

Well said! I agree with you totally.

TPM - as usual, you are right on.

While gametracker and the sort are not yet a big thing in the D3 realm, we are fortunate that all the schools in the conference are within 1.5-2 hours away. We look fwd to still being able to sit out in left field [many would say my usual locale!!] and enjoy watching him play.

RZ - you too are correct - with all the things this kid has had to deal with, both on the field and medically, his character will be the least of our concerns. He has never been what you would call a gifted athlete - just always busted his hump to be a player - which, as you say, will serve him well in life.

windmill - nice post - congrats to your son

Windmill - I too remember our "last game" just one year ago! It is the end of one journey for them and the beginning of a new one! May he continue to enjoy playing this wonderful game!

They're right...on to the next one!

We all eagerly anticipate the next [last] leg of the journey - on top of everything else, it will be refreshing to se him surrounded with serious ballplayers. We also look fwd to him being challenged more - his last 2 years he was the only pitcher that did any off season work, only one who prepared between starts, etc. Now he see that all those thinsg won't be enough - I am anxious to see how he does being pushed - he loves to work hard, so having like-minded teammates should be interesting.

quote:

While gametracker and the sort are not yet a big thing in the D3 realm, we are fortunate that all the schools in the conference are within 1.5-2 hours away.

I do envy you. I'm about over the "A" line at Southwest Airlines.

"A" line?

Is that their Ambassador Club or something?