Spring Training, 2008

Well, here we are at the beginning of a new baseball season. April, 2008 already. I suppose then that it is time to post the post I was going to put here about Spring Training. I am a little behind. Lots of things going on this year. I am just now getting around to it.

My son loves baseball. He was a pretty good player these past 7 years in Little League. But he was always playing. This year he graduated from Little League so he wasn't playing this season. I thought this would be a great opportunity to take him out to Arizona to see some pre-season baseball.

My son is growing into a nice young man and I really hadn't spent a lot of time with him. I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk. This would be a four hour car trip. He only has 72 songs on his iPOD and I think he got bored with them because he played for me his favorites and then he turned it off and after a while we just talked.

We talked about his friends, his school and, of course, the road.

"Dad, how do they know it is 300 miles to Phoenix?" I did my best. I explained that someone came out with a big tape measure and actually walked the entire distance and recorded the distance...No. I told him that it was developed when they surveyed for the roads. Each road has a given distance. They know what the distance is between certain points. They made lots of studies and that is how they know. (I didn't want to get into satellite imagery and triangulations.)

At about 9pm and an hour or two away from our destination the talked turned to religion. Lord Almighty, my prayers have been answered.

I always wanted my kids to make their own decisions. I was there to guide them as best I could and hope that they made the right decisions for themselves. My son made me proud just by talking about the things that we did. From our discussion I discovered that my son has a decent head on his shoulders.

We had a great trip. We arrived at the hotel and went right to bed. We were both tired.

The next day we went to the sports complex to watch our favorite team practice. I had bought him a baseball for autographs. I didn't want him fighting with the eight year olds for baseballs. He was able to see several minor leaguers practicing with the big boys.

The park was nice. The field was ok. The game was uneventful (our team lost.) But the weekend was a success. We both had a lot of fun just walking around, just being together. I had a terrific time. I hope he did too.