Obsessed! One Family's (Baseball) Education

My 8-year-old son, Antonio, wishes he could live at Coors Field. He loves baseball more than I have ever loved any "thing" in my life. Every morning, he digs through the paper for the sports page. He clips out Rockies pictures, scores, and statistics and pastes them in his scrapbook He spends all of his allowance on baseball cards, which he trades with friends and brings along on road trips. He knows about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. He knows which teams won the World Series, and in what year.

Antonio was a restless baby and an impatient toddler. We struggled to keep up with him and had to work hard to keep him focused. At age 5, in an effort to give him an outlet for his energy, we signed him up for t-ball. Little did we know, our lives (or our Saturdays) would never be the same!

Each winter, he anticipates spring like a caged animal, eyeing the baseball fields as we drive by in hopes that the snow will melt. How it came to this is, to us, a great mystery. Before Antonio came along, our experience with baseball, let alone team sports, was limited. Each member of our family now has our own Rockies player-our 5-year-old daughter, Emmaline, loves Matt Holliday; I root for Brad Hawpe; Gary cheers for Matsui. Antonio, once a staunch Todd Helton fan, now favors Tulowinski. His obsession has opened up a whole new world for us.

Now, Antonio takes pride in being the only kid on the team who uses a wooden bat. When asked why he uses it, even though a metal one might make his balls go further, he says: "Babe Ruth didn't need a metal bat."

Antonio's Grandad, once a catcher for the Evergreen High School team, helps Antonio improve his hitting and his pitch. When he and Antonio can't watch a game together, they call each other afterwards. Baseball has created a strong, sweet bond between them.

Every day, Antonio teaches us more about baseball-and at the same time, he learns more about the world. It seems that almost any subject-- right now, reading, writing, and math; later, statistics, sociology, economics, geography, and history-- can be accessed through his obsession with baseball.

If we win the suite, we will invite Antonio's Grandad and his fantastic (VOLUNTEER) coach of three years, Dan Dincola, to join us. It will be a great thank-you for a guy who has helped to turn our very active, once difficult son into a wonderful kid with some "thing" great to love.