There's no crying in baseball

My boys play baseball. To be sure that you understand the magnitude of that statement, let me fully explain. They play spring baseball, then summer travel baseball, moving on to fall ball, and then indoor winter baseball workouts that slightly overlap with spring baseball.

J.J. has started a new thing this year that we are just starting to sort out. He is a good solid player who usually finds some way to get on base, but he has decided to be injured every game. Now, he is profoundly skinny, so at first I thought he was getting banged around while stealing home or tagging a runner at third, and I think that is partly true. But, when a pattern began to emerge, I realized the problem was not his skin and bones.

Saturday night I sat and talked with a lovely woman. She is physically lovely, she is emotionally lovely. She has been through a lot in recent years, ever since her husband, who was successfully climbing the corporate ladder, came home and announced, “I’m leaving. I have out-grown you.”

Now, I know this man, her ex-husband. He is a nice man and I like him, but I have always been struck by his increasing bravado. I have caught myself watching him quizzically, wondering why, with all his success, he still needs to prove himself. I like him just fine without all the veneer.

One of the cautionary techniques I use, when I am tempted to look at people too critically, is to try and find myself in whatever is itching me about them. So, I stopped my heart from going too far into critique mode, and I asked myself, “Do I believe my own hype?”

Isn’t that a great question? Think about it. One of the most frightening things about success and/or failure is the temptation to believe our own hype, and once we believe it, we have to maintain it.

The labels we give ourselves – writer, educator, entrepreneur, pastor, coach, doctor, athlete, musician, counselor, engineer, loser – and the adjectives we choose – creative, smart, motivated, artistic, logical, nurturing, successful, addicted, funny, persistent, amiable, sick – all end up being definitions that need defending. We believe our own hype.

When I think I am the Big Dog, then I must bark loudly. When I admit that my family has fat genes, then I do not need to exercise. When I am a great baseball player, I must feign injury on a faulty play, because to admit a simple error threatens my athleticism.

People (spouses, friends, families) do not out-grow one another. Everyone has beautiful adjectives and ugly ones and life together is moving through all of our individual and collective definitions – both the ones based on truth and the complete fantasies – and sticking with each other. And those who recognize the complete genius of being humbled from time to time, may even allow others to correct, tweak and subtract from their hype, letting God, and people who love them, slowly chip away at the veneer.

For J.J., it’s a phase, one that mom and dad and his coaches will help him work through. Besides, he can get away with a lot because he’s 10 and terribly cute. For the rest of us, some growing up, instead of growing out, may be in order.