Jeff Roberts

My son's baseball coach pulled me aside after practice last spring and told me something I've never repeated until now. My son is sixteen. He's been playing baseball since he was six. He's good. Not scholarship good. Good in the way that matters more, where he's the kid who stays late, who picks up the equipment, who remembers everyone's batting average because he actually cares. His coach called me over after the other parents had left. He's a former minor leaguer. Forties. Direct man. Doesn't say things he doesn't mean. Him: Can I tell you something about your son? Me: Of course. Him: He's not going to make varsity next year. Me: Okay. Him: He's working as hard as anyone I've coached. Harder than most. But the ceiling he has athletically isn't going to get him there. Me: Alright. Him: I know that's hard to hear. Me: It is what it is. Him: That's not what I wanted to tell you. I waited. Him: Three weeks ago one of my other players was having a bad practice. Really struggling. Wanted to quit. He went and sat in the dugout and your son went and sat with him. Me: Okay. Him: I was about to go over. But I stopped because I wanted to see what he'd do. Him: He didn't tell him it would be fine. Didn't give him a speech. He just sat there with him for a few minutes. And then he said something I couldn't hear. And the kid laughed. And they went back out. I didn't say anything. Him: I've been coaching for twenty years. That's not something you can teach. That's character. That's just who someone is. He looked at me. Him: I don't know what you're doing at home but whatever it is, keep doing it. I shook his hand. Got in my car. Sat there. My son came out five minutes later and knocked on the window. Him: Why are you just sitting here? Me: Thinking. Him: About what? Me: Your coach said something nice about you. Him: About my batting? Me: Not about your batting. He got in the car. Me: He told me about the kid in the dugout. He looked uncomfortable the way teenagers do when they're caught doing something good. Him: Tyler was having a bad day. Me: What did you say to him? That made him laugh? He shrugged. Him: I told him he wasn't as bad as he thought he was. And that even if he was, baseball wasn't everything. Me: From the kid who eats baseball? Him: Yeah. Me: Did you mean it? He thought about it. Him: I meant it for him. Me: That counts. We drove home. He was on his phone within two minutes the way they are. But I kept thinking about a sixteen year old boy deciding the right thing to do was sit down next to someone. Not fix it. Just sit. There are grown adults who never learn that. He figured it out at sixteen in a dugout on a Thursday. I didn't say anything to my wife until that night. She listened to the whole thing. When I finished she was quiet. Her: He gets that from you. Me: I'm not like that. Her: You absolutely are like that. Me: I'm not a sit quietly and wait kind of person. Her: You came and sat with me in the hospital when my mother was sick and you didn't say a single word for three hours and it was exactly what I needed. I didn't remember it that way. Her: You just sat. And it was everything. I thought about that. Me: Maybe he gets it from both of us. Her: Maybe. She turned off the light. I lay there thinking about a kid who won't make varsity and a boy who sat with him anyway and whether any of the things that actually matter show up on a roster. They don't. But they show up everywhere else.