Proud Dad

[yerout13]

Tonight, I found myself thinking how proud of my son I was at that particular moment after a phone call I'd recieved from him on my way to my scheduled double header this evening , ... here's why.

He's worked for a local league, working the 10U/12U games, as a 1 -man crew in the 10U, and as 2-man in the 12 U, now for this entire season. This was his first year working for this particular league (back info, he turned 15 in April of this year). Last year I started him out for about 2 weeks in T-ball but quickly figured out he "got it" a lot sooner than I had originally expected so moved him up to a older age group (then it was 9U ande 10U). Anyways, this league has a history of helping young umpires get a start in the craft, and my son was happy to get the opportunity with them. in any case, the call wasn't about a great call, dumping a manager, etc... he called and said the following;

"The league president called me and said he had an emergency and the scheduled umpire tonight couldn't make it, and hoped I could work on short notice. I said I'd be happy to of course, and Dad I was suprised by what his response was... he told me he was extremely happy to have me as part of their crew this year, and that it was very unusual to have a teenager so dependable, and able to come to our rescue. He then thanked me for being a good employee and working so hard for them."

Now my son has worked a ton of games for them this year, 5 sometimes 6 nights a week to date, and I found myself feeling a good amount of pride, not that he was doing well as an umpire, I expected that, he's a bright kid, and loves doing it, so him doing well in that regard wasn't a big shocker to me... what I was so proud of was my son being considered "dependable" to his empoyer. This is REALLY something you can't teach, you can try to instill this in your children, but to have it present with minimal effort pleases me a great deal.

For my son, it was baseball that brought this out in him. I'm sure it existed, however it's never been so prominent than it has been as a result of his umpiring.

Anyways, felt like bragging.....

note: if this is the wrong forum please feel free to move it to it's proper location... thanks in advance

Edited July 2, 2010 by yerout13
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[Moriarty_45]

Awesome. I know exactly how you feel.

[ukce1861]

Good job, dad! You should be proud!

[Stan W.]

its not bragging...........when your talking about character and values........its very much worth being proud of....

good job.......congrats to you and your boy...!!

[semper_fi_72]

You raised him correctly and should be proud.

A teenager with a dependable work ethic is rare.

[Kevin Finnerty]

You raised him correctly and should be proud.

A teenager with a dependable work ethic is rare.

Umpiring's a fantastic way for a teenager to adopt a strong work ethic.

[yerout13]

we don't have very many of them (pics) but there's a group of photographers locally who shoot all the teams in the tournaments at one of the complex's I work at regularly, this pic was my father's day gift from them. This was taken after we'd worked games on seperate field's, they happened to find us loitering outside the concession stand. Later that day we became the first father son duo to work a game at this complex... not a big deal, but kinda neat

Edited July 8, 2010 by yerout13
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[yawetag]

this pic was my father's day gift from them.

I didn't know you were an MLB umpire.