It’s 3 AM and I’m stumbling around our dimly lit house checking for the hundredth time that I did not forget to pack anything. Why exactly am I up at this unGodly hour to catch a flight to Atlanta when our season was over two weeks ago?

I’ll tell you why, because regardless of when your regular season ends for your team there are always dozens of tournaments that continue well into August. The All-State, the All-Stars, Elite, and so on and so on. 

So for those of us who just can’t come to terms with the idea that baseball season is over this is how you spend your last few weeks before heading back to school.

It’s moments like this, when I am up at three in the morning for youth sports, that the question many of my friends  have asked over the years  comes racing through my mind. “Why do you do it? Don’t you get tired? Don’t you miss having a social life during the summer?” And at this moment, at 3 AM I would probably answer them “I want out”!

But I know myself, it’s the hour talking not how I actually feel. Because when I look back at the last nine years, the games, the road trips, the memories, lessons learned, watching my son grow from a little boy playing T-ball to a 13-year-old who sometimes can do some pretty amazing things out on that field I know… It’s worth it. It’s worth every 3 AM wake up, it’s worth missing out on some of the social events during the summer, it’s worth the long road trips, the not sleeping in your bed, it’s worth every exhausting moment. It’s worth it  because the memories we have shared as a family out on those fields,  across this amazing country are priceless.

 
So while I sit here, now, waiting for the plane to take off I’ll just plug in my headphones and take a nap before starting our wild weekend of baseball, of memories.