During a check of my email, I received notification of a blog comment. I was real surprised since I have been neglecting my blog for quite some time. It was a short comment from a person stating that they were doing research on blog writing and had spent quite a bit of time perusing mine. Commenter ended by saying keep providing useful information. Hmm....useful huh? I hadn't quite looked at it that way in a while. So what have I been up to other than blogging? Facebook seems to have taken over as the quicker way of informing people "what up"....but I do have an interesting story about sharing useful information. We hosted college baseball players during the summer for a few years. It was a huge commitment for our family both financially and personally; having given up the privacy of our own home to share it with 18-21 year old ball players who were loud, hungry, dirty (needing a lot of showers) and in one case pretty disrespectful. But we did it out of love for the game of baseball and the exposure it gave our son to how very hard you must work at your sport to play at the next level....COLLEGE. Greg is a freshman this year on the Varsity team. He is on a team that has two wins and ten losses and he is one of the two pitchers they look to for the starts. He was the winning pitcher for the teams only two wins. It has been a struggle to keep motivated under the circumstances. Positive notes are that Greg is being coached by his grandfather and another 25 year veteran coach...the only two people in the area besides his father that I would entrust to further his baseball talent. 
Greg is not a morning person, kinda like his mother, and so he has failed to see the necessity of getting out of bed before school for 6:30am hitting....besides only 3 kids on the team ever show up. We have tried to leave it up to Greg to have the self discipline to go...he functions better when things are his idea anyway (don't we all). Needless to say he makes it there about 2 out of 4 mornings that the extra hitting is offered. This is where the big payoff has come from hosting those college boys. 
My father made a comment the other day that Greg should ask Nate how many early hitting practices he skipped. Nate Recknagel was a ballplayer at the University of Michigan when he stayed at our house. He was a great house guest and spent a lot of time sharing his knowledge with Greg while he was here. 
We made a trip to Michigan the following year to see him play in the Big Ten League and watched the computer as he was drafted into Professional Baseball. We've kept in touch and his mom is one of my facebook friends...you know the mom is always the quickest route to info on where he is and what team he is currently playing for...and she still gives updates on his latest home run count. I sent Nate a quick message asking if he could find the time to do so, could he drop a line to Greg with some motivation for his personal growth during a year where the team is rebuilding. Part of me thought he might post a comment on Greg's profile about keeping his head up and continuing to work hard...part of me thought he might just be way too busy to write anything personalized to Greg's situation...On the contrary, he took the time to write a very genuine message with plenty of motivation but extremely realistic. He said he was taught that you get back what you put into something and he has never seen anyone get anywhere in baseball without A LOT of hard work. He told him if he is not going to morning hitting at least three times per week then he shouldn't be going at all because he is wasting his time. Nate told Greg that if he swings the bat 400 times he is not done....swing it another 400 times to ensure that his muscles remember the motion. What he sent is priceless to us as parents of a boy who has dreams of being recruited by a big deal baseball school and needs to be reminded how much work that really takes. For Greg....not impressed. It was just Nate talking to him the same as he did before he made it to the pros. I hope he thinks about that message and puts it to good use. Nate wants Reagan to write to him too and let him know what she has been doing. It was a great reminder of why we took those guys from Michigan into our home on a whim four years ago. I knew packing all those sandwiches and scrambling lots of eggs before games for those guys would come in handy someday.... 
Greg is not a morning person, kinda like his mother, and so he has failed to see the necessity of getting out of bed before school for 6:30am hitting....besides only 3 kids on the team ever show up. We have tried to leave it up to Greg to have the self discipline to go...he functions better when things are his idea anyway (don't we all). Needless to say he makes it there about 2 out of 4 mornings that the extra hitting is offered. This is where the big payoff has come from hosting those college boys. My father made a comment the other day that Greg should ask Nate how many early hitting practices he skipped. Nate Recknagel was a ballplayer at the University of Michigan when he stayed at our house. He was a great house guest and spent a lot of time sharing his knowledge with Greg while he was here. We made a trip to Michigan the following year to see him play in the Big Ten League and watched the computer as he was drafted into Professional Baseball. We've kept in touch and his mom is one of my facebook friends...you know the mom is always the quickest route to info on where he is and what team he is currently playing for...and she still gives updates on his latest home run count. I sent Nate a quick message asking if he could find the time to do so, could he drop a line to Greg with some motivation for his personal growth during a year where the team is rebuilding. Part of me thought he might post a comment on Greg's profile about keeping his head up and continuing to work hard...part of me thought he might just be way too busy to write anything personalized to Greg's situation...On the contrary, he took the time to write a very genuine message with plenty of motivation but extremely realistic. He said he was taught that you get back what you put into something and he has never seen anyone get anywhere in baseball without A LOT of hard work. He told him if he is not going to morning hitting at least three times per week then he shouldn't be going at all because he is wasting his time. Nate told Greg that if he swings the bat 400 times he is not done....swing it another 400 times to ensure that his muscles remember the motion. What he sent is priceless to us as parents of a boy who has dreams of being recruited by a big deal baseball school and needs to be reminded how much work that really takes. For Greg....not impressed. It was just Nate talking to him the same as he did before he made it to the pros. I hope he thinks about that message and puts it to good use. Nate wants Reagan to write to him too and let him know what she has been doing. It was a great reminder of why we took those guys from Michigan into our home on a whim four years ago. I knew packing all those sandwiches and scrambling lots of eggs before games for those guys would come in handy someday.... 
