09/11/2024
If you give a girl a softball…
"If you give a girl a softball, she will want a bat to go with it.
You’ll buy her the best bat you can find, and then she will probably want a bucket of balls and a glove and some cleats too.
Then, she will probably spend hours begging you to go out in the yard to play with her, even though you may want to sit on the couch and watch tv. she will insist. And her insistence will win.
And when a girl gets a jersey, she will need pants and socks and a belt to go with it. And a TEAM…..And then life as you know it will end.
There will be no more lazy weekends watching tv. You will see more sunrises than you ever thought possible. Every spare minute of your time will be spent hauling buckets and bags and stinky cleats and crazy girls all over tarnation for hours to practice for a game.
THE GAME.
And your house will be a mess. And your car will be dirty. All because you gave a girl a softball.
Your weekends will be spent freezing or burning to death on a fold-up chair. And her weekends will be spent gaining confidence and friends, and learning new skills and having fun, and getting dirty. So dirty in fact that you will have to learn how to do laundry in a whole new way, like maybe at a carwash using the pressure washer.
And you will be there the day she hits her first home run, first strikeout, and her first double play. And she will make you SO proud. The other moms will congratulate you. But you feel weird saying thank you because it's not you at bat or on the mound. It's everything her . she did this.
And right before your eyes, your little girl will be transformed from the baby who spun around with her head on the bat, (because she loves attention), into a pitcher. Because she loves attention still.
When you give a girl a softball, you give her more than just a ball. You give her a sport and talent, and hope, and dreams, and friends, a new family, a place to learn about life, room to grow as a person where she can push her limits, and bravery, and courage, and LIFE, and memories. And she will have ALL of these things, simply because you gave a girl a softball.
Because you gave a girl a softball, you too will develop new/lifelong friendships, developed solely from the same passion for the game and love of your team. You will root together. And spew PG-13 things out of your mouths together. Because you gave a girl a softball.
Then one day, many years from today….she will be in her room and a softball will roll out from an old dusty bat bag underneath her bed. And she will pick it up and realize instantly that when you gave that girl a softball, you also gave her a childhood that she would never forget. And then she will hug you, and your eyes may leak – because you realize that everything YOU gave up along the way…..was worth it!
All because you gave a girl a softball ...🥎"
