How many games has he played? If I'm reading you correctly, it's just the one, yes? Give him a chance to build some skills. If you pull him out now, he's just going to get the idea that if you can't pick something up right away, you'll never pick it up. I say this as someone who truly stank on ice at baseball, but loved the game enough to play for a few years. As a kid I never got much better, but as an adult I'm OK, as long as we're playing softball and everyone else is drinking heavily.

Sign your six-year-old up for pee-wee football. I couldn't run bases in baseball, although I could throw scary, and hit long. But I loved to hit people, from the time (10 years old) I first got shoulder pads, to the time I had to take 'em off (20 years old, college sophomore). No summer ends, like now, that I don't want to knock people wearing white ding's in the dirt.

Lack of capability in one sport, doesn't imply lack of capability in another.

And, have you had the kid's eyes tested lately?

See how it goes. He may pick up on what he needs to do very quickly. Or he may just stink at baseball. Either way - you're not really going to know from going one time.

I'm going to answer you obliquely: I didn't play team sports as a kid, or ever.

Only now, in my late 30s, have I realized how much I might have benefited from playing on a team, any team.

Thanks guys. You're right, we need to go more than once. From experience we know he's not the most coordinated athlete. And, god, I know he's only six, but he can be a bit spacey.

Elsa, I didn't play team sports either. I want my kids to do things I didn't. I always felt a little out of the loop that I didn't play sports.

And, have you had the kid's eyes tested lately?

Yes. He sees the ophthalmologist every six months. He has an appointment next week. He is farsighted and wears glasses. This may or may not have something to do with it.

Apologies if my question sounds a little neurotic and melodramatic. Mr. went out to play cards for the first time since he's been sick. I'm feeling a little lonely and unsure about this baseball thing, even though it's no big deal in the big scheme. Parenting is hard.

It's hard on kids when they don't do well. As long as they have a go and love playing that's the main thing. Maybe baseball isn't his sport?

I was/am pretty hopeless at all ball sports so I did dance, rowing and fencing which didn't involve them.

In general, when our kids signed up for something, we made sure they followed through and completed that season, even if they didn't like it at first. Usually by the end of the season, they were doing okay and had fun (even if they decided that activity wasn't for them).

Specifically, my youngest did the coach pitch baseball thing. At the very first practice, my son missed the ball with his glove and the ball hit him right in the mouth. He already had braces and the inside of his lip was cut up pretty good. The worst part is, the ball had been thrown by a *girl*!

We got him into it hoping it would improve his coordination which was pretty weak. He never did learn how to catch, but he did manage to get a good hit in every game. One of his team mates teased him for not being able to catch a ball, but (heh) that kid only got one hit the whole season, so I was quietly happy about that.

Our kids tried several different activities. They both sucked at sports when they were little. They both did scouts for a while (3-4 years in each case), which helped them in a lot of ways but that wasn't really their thing either. The younger one did Tae Kwon Do for a couple years and he excelled at it, but eventually got busy with other things. In the end, they both ended up musicians, and the younger one sings in the school choir as well.

Whatever their niche is, I think it is important to encourage them to try different things until they find it, and to give a fair shot to things they try their hand at (i.e., don't quit after the first game). I think having these extracirricular activities helps keep them out of trouble (the kind one gets into as a result of being bored). We tried not to force them into activities they didn't want to do, but we made it clear they had to be involved in *something*.

I don't know yet if any of that worked. The oldest is 20, the youngest is 17. They are basically good kids, but I suppose until they are earning their own way and are out on their own, I won't know if I raised them right!

I played two miserable bench-warming seasons of Little League. Every at-bat was an exercise in humiliation. I would just hope to get hit by a pitch, cuz that was the only way I would ever get on base. They stuck me in left field, where I could watch moths flutter around the field lights while everyone else played baseball. I hated it. I did it to make my dad happy. I thought he wanted me to play. But seeing him try to mask his disappointment with every awkward strike-out, to hafta listen to the other team jeer me every time I was on deck.....God, I hated it.

It turned me against playing organized sports forever. Never again would I suit up for anything team-oriented, from the Cub Scouts to high school basketball. Nope. Fuck it. Not gonna do that again. It's punk rock, pot, and poetry for me. And I got more chicks than the jocks did, too. And I very probably permanently compromised my ability to function as part of any team. I still hate groupthink and the feeling of being a cog in a larger mechanism.

And I still hate baseball.

I'd like to say I learned something valuable about good sportsmanship and teamwork, but the truth is that all I learned is that I would never live up to my Dad's expectations. So I stopped trying.

Finish one season, just to instill the lesson that you have to finish what you start, even if you hate it. If he still hates it, don't make him play.

Expose him to some individual sports: golf, tennis, wrestling, maybe martial arts like judo or tae kwon do. Teach him that competing can be a singular pursuit of individual excellence.

Seriously, there is a huge difference between t-ball and coach pitch. Learning how to follow the trajectory of the ball, both as a batter and a fielder, is something that comes with practice and experience.

Let him play this for awhile. If he really doesn't improve and he starts to hate it, that's when to ask if he wants to quit. Don't forget: there's also the issue of saving face. Even if he continues to suck and hate it, he may want to continue so that he doesn't look like a wuss in front of his friends.

Fast and coordinated runner? He might enjoy soccer more. And track and field events might be great for him, though I don't know if there are coordinated programs for kids his age.

My little nieces have been taking Tai Kwan Do classes for years, and love it. One benefit of this kind of training - beyond the obvious physical exercise and mental discipline, blah, blah - is that it's co-ed, which I think is good in terms of avoiding "boys do this kind of activity/girls do this kind of activity" thinking.

See how it goes with the baseball, and if possible expose him to other options and see what he genuinely enjoys. Kids are so super-smart and tuned in to their parents' expectations that it can be difficult for you to parse what they want to do for them, and what they want to do for you... if you can expose him to several activities, he will probably trend toward something that resonates with him.

Never quit without doing a season, this sets a bad prece..prese..pre oh you know.

Also, sounds like he's a soccer-kid if he's got stamina and foot-control behind all that running power. Get a ball and start kicking it around with him on Saturdays. See if he takes to it, might be next seasons game.

I played two years of softball and I sucked and I wish I'd been doing something else. I just stood there, chewing my mitt. Have him finish the season, because it's a commitment, and then present him with a lot of options for an activity for the next year, inlcuding baseball on the same team. I really, really blossomed once I hit drama.

oh, yeah... I should have mentioned: I was teh suxor at baseball, but great at archery, riflery and swimming. Bad at tennis, bad at golf. Good at bowling. I can't remember any others. Does billiards count? I played on a team! I was pretty durn good! not that I would want to challenge specklet :)

Thanks everybody. I appreciate the responses, I love reading them. He has played team soccer twice. I think he prefers it. Actually, I know he does. On the way out he said he wanted to play soccer and basketball. We're going to stick with baseball, but after this he doesn't have to play baseball again if he doesn't want.

I played tee-ball when I was 6 because my parents suggested it, and thus it seemed like something I "ought" to do. I could never really understand what I was doing there though, or what I was supposed to be getting out of it. I went through the motions, did as well as I could (which wasn't very good), and tried not to act too relieved when it was all over. Our team only won two games, and both wins occurred when I was away on vacation.

It's so hard to now what kids really want because one of their main desires is to be a good son or daughter, and they will agree to lots of things out of deference to (or in anticipation of) your suggestions. That's how I ended up with a stamp collection, in jigsaw puzzle-making classes, getting a tree to plant for my 10th birthday instead of toys, and lots of other red herrings. I could sense my parents excitement at the idea, and fell in step with them despite misgivings I never would have revealed. I didn't want to be a poor sport. I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I was good at volleyball and was curious about martial arts, but one was considered a girl sport and the other was prohibitively expensive, so I kept quiet.

Even if you feel strongly about quitting, it's just as important for someone to learn that there's nothing ignoble about discovering that something really isn't a good fit and taking steps to correct the situation. Make a whole list of activities and sports that are available, invite him to add stuff to it, and then ask him to circle the three he is most curious about or thinks he'd do well at. From there you can discuss what to do about it. Be very casual about it. If he senses you depending on the outcome of the situation, he will try anticipate the choices he *ought* to make to please you.

Just some opinions. I'm so glad you are putting a lot of thought into this.

As far as the eyesight is concerned, I come from a family of astigmatic glasses-wearers, though I myself have been around 20-20 lifetime. My brother wanted to play baseball as a kid, but found that his far-sightedness and lack of real depth perception, and the slow speed at which his eyes adjust to oncoming objects, made catching and hitting not just difficult, but embarrassing (he'd get hit in the face by balls that were coming straight at him, because his eyes wouldn't be able to gauge their speed; if a ball came to either side, he'd have no problem seeing and catching it).

He switched to soccer, and had an immediate impact on his team, scoring two or three goals a game for his entire short-lived career. See, his soccer hero was Giorgio Chinaglia, who would hang around just onsides, talking to a defender, and the ball would come, and he'd turn faster than the defender and be four long steps behind him and the ball would be in the back of the net before you could blink.

My brother played youth soccer (I'm talking 8-12 year-olds) this way, and things were going great guns; his team was always top ranked and he was the top scorer, until some of the parents of other kids on the team said to the coach, "[Hugh's brother] always scores the goals. You have to take him out and put my kid in, so everybody gets a fair chance to score a goal." Since the coach wanted to put his own kid in at striker, he agreed, and told my brother, "You score too many goals. I'm sitting you out for this game so someone else can score."

His team was shut out, and my brother's soccer career was over. My brother though I'm just not cut out for sports, and never tried out for a sport again, when he had a knack for goal scoring that would have made him a real asset to any team. And then he carried the undeserved internal stigma of childhood athletic failure around for decades. Other people's parents are even more poisonous than other people.

I played soccer as a little kid and switched to lacrosse at age 10. As a big kid, the hitting suited me fine, and the hand-eye coordination took a bit to master, but everyone plays the throwing and catching part of the game, unlike football, where I probably would have been a linebacker at my (youth) size and speed and done nothing but chase guys down and pound them to dust.

I like team sports, always have, and played soccer in an adult coed rec league for a few years, a few years ago, in Maryland. I ruined my knees for hard-court running playing pickup basketball over the years, or I'd probably play tennis now. I like it 'cuz it's like ping pong.

What does he seem drawn to? I would go with those. Is he exposed to playground sports at his school? I'm clumsy and sucked at everything---I have a vivid fifth grade memory of storming off the kickball field (drawn on asphalt) after the opposite team crowded in with contempt. I preferred swimming and horseback riding.

I was going to talk about glasses and depth perception, but Hugh beat me to it. I played baseball for several years as a kid, and hated pretty much every moment of it. I wore glasses, and just could never get the hang of catching fly balls or hitting. Mostly, I was stuck on the bench or out in right field, and was constantly embarrased by my ineptitude.

Oh just to state the obvious - you can take a soccer ball out and kick it around by yourself, and practice goals, and you can take a basketball out and dribble and shoot hoops by yourself as well - so either of those means he can go practice by himself if he's keen without needing other people to practice with. Plus if either of you feel like practicing it's easily accommodated.

By the time I was six, my dad was 54 and not in very good physical shape. He coached the Little League team of his two sons from his previous marriage; twenty years later, his interest in doing anything even remotely sports-related with me was precisely nil. Two years later he had his first heart attack and that put the nail in that coffin lid.

I wish I'd been able to do something athletic as a kid, be on the team. But you gotta have a dad who works out with you on a regular basis and helps you develop the skills. Mom, coach, other kids can't cut it.

Hermitosis, I like your "circle three" suggestion. It's a great idea.

Your responses gives me a lot to think about. I want my children to pursue what they're interested in. I admit that I feel pressured. My parents are hardcore baseball fans. My dad was an exceptional athlete. My mother actually called me on the telephone to remind me about baseball sign-ups. The kids have lots of gifts of autographed bats and balls and the like from my parents and in-laws. I'm 35 years old and still feel the need to please my parents. It's ridiculous. I don't think they understand the severity of my children's hyperopia. MrMoonpie's and Hugh's brother's experience is what is happening with my eldest kid. Baseball isn't the sport for them.

ikkyu2, I agree. The dad has to be the practice coach. I can't throw to save my life.

Also herm, I never knew there was such a thing as jigsaw puzzle-making classes. ;)

Honey, don't you ever think twice about standing up and shutting down stuff that you don't think is good for your kids - even when it comes from your own parents.

Some of the most cherished memories in my life were from my mom standing up to ... pretty much anybody who wanted to have something to say about what I said or did, or who I was. She was a 21-year-old farm girl when I was born - somebody who felt she was outclassed and undereducated compared to pretty much everyone she met after she married my dad. But she was gorgeous and popular with just about every single person she had any contact with, and as sweet as anyone could imagine - until they crossed the line with her child, at which point she became the implacable Wall of Stone.

I'm completely amazed now, at this strength and focus when she was just trying to sort things out all on her own, and feeling completely inadequate to the task. She refused certain doctor-recommended procedures (like tonsils out, braces, some other stuff that I don't remember) and turned out to be right about every one of them; faced down teachers, family, neighbors, priests - anyone, when they tried to impose something that she didn't think was best for me and my sister.

She didn't think she was smart or sophisticated enough to give us everything we needed, but she was exactly wrong, and gave us the very best headstart of all - that absolute love and fierce defense of us (notice, I don't say "protection" - this was a different thing), and an example of being able to stand up and say "No. Fuck no. You suck." - which has been priceless to me. (though she didn't exactly use those terms. :)

You're very much like her, Lori (except not the farm girl/uneducated part, etc.) - don't be afraid of stirring it up if that's what it comes to. Don't be afraid of presenting the implacable wall, if that's what it takes. Do what you feel.

Thank you so much taz. You're absolutely right.

What a great mom you had. I'm inspired. I always can count on you and the rest of the bunnies to put things into perspective. Thank you.