This Spring has been full of baseball—in between the rain in Houston. Cody (pictured above on the left) played his first year of Pony Baseball, and Tanner was in the Little League Minors Division. Both had a lot of fun, and we really enjoy watching them play…
Last year, I heard about a book written by Mike Matheny, who followed a 13-year career in Major League Baseball by coaching a little league team. He agreed to coach the team, with conditions. In fact, a frankly worded letter he wrote to the parents of the team became an internet sensation and eventually a “manifesto”—which was codified in this book.
Matheny noted that his main goals are to:
- Teach these boys how to play baseball the right way
- Make a positive impact on them as young men
- Do all this with class
So besides getting them used to spending part of every practice without a glove or a bat, learning about honesty or teamwork or loyalty, he looked for service projects. While other teams might be traveling to other states for tournaments, Matheny was looking for places where boys could help out the less fortunate.
Matheny explains, “Ironically, if I had learned anything from baseball, from all the coaching and the training and the practices and the development, it was that so much more went into making a child an adult than teaching athletic skills and how to win games.”
Click here for more of The Matheny Manifesto.