Last year, my then-7-year-old boy, Ozzy, tried out for an all-star baseball team and didn’t make it, but he also had a run-in with his first bully at the event. Here’s a recap of what I wrote about it last Spring. 

I was nervous about the tryouts. Julieanne went with him because I had Covid, and then I sat around waiting for the text that he was doing fine, and it was all over, and he had fun. Throughout most of the day, that was the case, but she did say the dads who showed up to the tryouts were a little louder and more intense than the ones we interact with at his regular-season games. Some of them were full-on suffering as their kid – their SEVEN-year-old – ran through two hours' worth of drills, while the other Hoka dads with clipboards openly judged them. “He’s having fun, though!” All was well. 

Then I got a follow-up text from Julieanne that a loudmouth kid told Ozzy in front of other people that he wasn’t going to make it. To make things worse, it turned out the loudmouth was the coach’s son. “Who!” I texted back. “Prick coach [Redacted]’s!” Julieanne was furious. And in that moment, I felt a part of me break inside of me. It was fury, of course, but also the echoes of intramural-sports league bullies from my own past and their own prick fathers engaging in the competitive neanderthal theater of the American schoolyard.

This past weekend, he went to tryout again. He was more confident this time—he played well in fall ball as an 8-year-old and probably had a decent shot of making the team this year. But when we pulled into the parking lot, his whole attitude changed. He saw the kid who made him feel like crap, and the same coach who cut him the last time. Even though we were a good 50 yards away from the dugout, he spotted them. 

From there, it was a series of hyperventilations and tears. He didn’t want to go anymore. I patiently tried to convince him that all he had to do was walk in and tryout and nothing bad would happen to him.

“He’s gonna make fun of me again!” More tears. 

Finally, I convinced him to step out of the car and walk over with me, but once he got outside, he began to shake and cry again. “No, no, no—please let me get back in the car.” 

I gave him a look, took his heavy equipment bag off his shoulder, and put it back in the trunk. Before I started the car, I wanted to give him a few more seconds to cool off and make sure he understood his choice. He told me to leave.

“God, why didn’t I go! I love baseball!” He was inconsolable. “I hate that stupid kid!” 

In the five seconds after this happened, I immediately thought of how my father would have handled this moment. I could tell my father lost respect for me when I was 8 after I blew a play in Little League and cried on the field. Whenever he was angry or disappointed in me when I was Ozzy’s age and, hell, even into my 30’s, he would turn off the car radio. And the day I blew that play, the car radio was off. He listened to me sniffle and gulp, and said nothing. That was until we got home, and then he proceeded to yell and say some truly heinous things to me because he hated me for being so weak.

He would probably disagree about him not respecting me, but when you’re a kid, you can pick up those frequencies. You can tell when someone likes you or doesn’t, who can overpower you, smash your spirit into crumbs, riddle your bones forever with the awful taunts and heartbreaks of childhood. When I was at my lowest as a kid—bullied or otherwise—my father would routinely go out of his way to make me feel like I deserved that sort of treatment. He was my first bully, the one I’m still getting over, the one I’m afraid I’ll become.

Before we got out of the parking lot, I looked at him in the mirror, watched him bury his face in his shirt. I hit him with some panicky affirmations. “You’re okay. This is something we can get through together.” Stuff like that. But I was shaking as I said it because I had my own reactions to seeing that stupid kid, that stupid coach, thinking about my father’s worst, most depressing failures, wondering if I’m doing the right thing by driving my son in the getaway car from this particular monster at this particular moment. Are we both being weaklings here?

“Hey, Ozzy—listen to me.” I turned around and stared at him. “That kid fucking sucks. Seriously. And you don’t suck.” He smiled because I said “fucking” but it felt appropriate in the moment. I asked him what song he wanted to listen to on the way back. “IDLES,” he said. We went and bought baseball cards after, shouted “Concrete to leather!” with the windows down, then had burgers when we got home. We both needed that.

Yesterday, he had his first scrimmage. He had two hits. He pitched one inning and struck out two batters. It would have been glorious if it were against the team with that stupid kid and that stupid coach, but that day will come. It always comes. 

The full Sunday rundown is below, including a new definition of “gratitude” that completely changed how I view gratitude. Join us if you can. Your support helps us keep going.