Kid Amnesiac

This one is for all you baseball fans….

So the thing about being athletic non-entities, is that you don’t necessarily know if your kid is good at something or not.  Matt and I, it is safe to say, are sports zeroes. So when Simon started hitting balls off a tee last summer, we thought it was a bit of fun. And when he switched to hitting pitched balls this summer, we were more impressed but still didn’t think too much about it.

Then last Wednesday Simon was having batting practice in the Whitworths’ front yard when a neighbor trotted over.

“I want a closer look at this,” he announced.

Hollis is not an athletic non-entity, and he spent the next 20 minutes or so critiquing Simon’s form. Apparently, for an un-coached 4-year-old, Simon is very good about having a full rotation, stepping into the pitch, following through, and keeping his wrist soft or something. I don’t know exactly. I just know that Hollis was nearly slack-jawed at Simon’s hitting ability and persistence (he stayed out for a full hour on the hottest day of the year). At the end, he had three bits of advice for me:

1. Get him into a coach-pitched league next year;
2. Get him on the links and see if this swing translates to golf, too;
3. Work on his pitching.

I will and I will and I will. Or, more to the point, (1) I will; (2) Matt, Jim (Simon’s Papaw),  or possibly friend Barry will; (3) Matt will. We took the above video last night, when Simon hit 12 of 13 in a two-minute span. All in all, he spent about 45 minutes outside and sent 18 over the fence. I don’t know how impressive this is at all, but we’re pretty tickled by it.