I am glad that my son lost.

I may have been the only parent standing on the Duncan Park T-ball field who felt that way when the Great River Chevrolet team beat Natchez Heating and Cooling Monday night.

I couldn’t have been prouder of my son when he showed off his new maroon and white baseball uniform before his team took the field.

He was ready for his first game, boasting with his T-ball teammates about how they were going to emerge victorious.

It looked like there was a chance that things could go that way when the score was tied 7-7 at the bottom of the first inning.

“Are we going to win Daddy?” Gibson asked through the dugout’s chain link fence.

“You are not winning yet, but you might if you keep playing hard,” I responded trying to encourage him to focus on the game.

The outlook quickly changed by the bottom of the second inning. In T-ball, teams can score a maximum of seven points per inning. A difficult defensive effort in the second inning by Gibson’s team put victory out of reach by the bottom of the third inning.

“Are we going to win?” Gibson asked again.

“It doesn’t look like it,” I said watching the expression on his face change. “But get out there and try as hard as you can.”

Even though Gibson’s team lost, I was proud of their effort. With a single, a double and two runs scored, Gibson tried his best.

If doing your best is important, then why keep score?

That is the question a growing number of people are asking.

Natchez Dixie-Youth Baseball keeps score, unlike other T-ball leagues across the country. These no-score youth sports have been gaining popularity across the country in recent years.

Proponents of such leagues say not keeping score and not having a win-loss record allows children to learn the skills necessary to play the game without the pressure of winning or losing, according to a recent article in athleticbusiness.com, an online journal for fitness and recreation professionals. Scoring gets in the way of skills development, they say.

Maybe.

Such strategies avoid teaching another important lesson — how to win and lose. Learning how to lose may be more important, in my opinion.

As Gibson congratulated the other team, you could tell he was slightly disappointed. It was nothing a free soft drink would not cure — or so I thought.

With a history of being a sore loser as a child, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at Gibson’s sour mood Monday evening before going to bed.

Whether he was just tired or had been letting thoughts of loss rattle around in his head, Gibson suddenly let out his frustration.

“It’s been a really bad day,” he said.

My wife tried to divert his attention by saying how proud she was of how he and his teammates played. Even still, he would not listen and went to bed sulking.

Learning how to lose gracefully is one of the biggest lessons for any athlete, from T-ball on up.

I am glad my son is beginning to learn early, because dealing with loss is not just part of the game. It is a part of life.

 

Ben Hillyer is the design editor of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3540 or by email at ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com.