Grapevine Sandlot Baseball Photos
Because there's more to this sport than the game.
Y'all will never get me off of my soap box on how important sports are for kids. You can read about me preaching this from the roof tops all over the place, but here we go again. One of the BEST things about youth sports is the lessons it teaches kids about relationships and teamwork. Kids learn that when they give their best it helps their team to achieve a goal. So maybe they realize when they try their best in a relationship, they can achieve great things there. Their kindness can multiple, their work ethic can grow and they can really make this world a better place.
Youth sports gets a bad rap these days on how competitive and commercialized it has become and that's another soap box that I will get on if you give me the time, but that's for another day. When it boils down to it, kids are playing a game. And kids communicate and interact in the world through play.
My middle kid has been playing baseball with the same group of kids more or less for the past almost four years. To say that I am grateful for these boys and their families is an understatement. I consider their moms some of my best friends and I love these boys and will go to bat (pun intended) for them any day of the week. So when we finally got the time to do a sandlot photo session of them, it wasn't about working on skills, drills, or batting practice, it was a celebration of how much these boys love playing baseball and how much they love each other.
Just a few days before they were swimming when a typical North Texas summer storm came through and they had to get out of the pool. They were distraught until one of the boy's grandpas mentioned those two little words that turned the whole thing around - The Sandlot. From there cheers and chants for the movie echoed through the backyard.
If you aren't familiar with the 1993 classic, I highly recommend adding it to your summer watch list because it truly celebrates all the things I love about sports. It's a coming of age tale of a young kid who is new to the neighborhood and finds himself, friendship and a love for a game through a summer of playing baseball at the park with the neighborhood kids. There are no fancy uniforms, matching bags or tournament rings. If anything, that's the antagonist in the story. The game never starts and never ends. It is just about boys playing a game that they love and having a summer of adventures.
My middle kid (who sees himself as Smalls), just mastered riding his bike with no training wheels this summer. It's unlocked the kind of carefree, summer of adventure that these boys have in the movie. I desire that so much for my kids, maybe without the fake drownings and chewing tobacco though. This session signifies the start of this independence that he is growing away from us. While it terrifies me, I am so excited for him. I am especially excited because these boys will be by his side, encouraging him, holding him accountable, and having a ton of fun while they're at it.
My crazy almost 8 year old who loves his baseball buds, the Sandlot, and the indpendence of riding a bike this summer.
So if you're in the midst of travel summer ball, I hope you can take a moment to relax in it all, slow down, and remember that this is a game that these boys (and girls) have fallen in love with and it can teach them so much more than just baseball skills if they let it.
