Okay. Let’s gather around for a minute.” I motion for the kids to join me on the pitcher’s mound.

Fourteen boys scramble toward me. One has his shoes untied and nearly trips over his own feet. Another is carrying his friend on his back. A third has taken off his shirt. Again.

“Hey, Braylon—get your shirt back on,” I say as he approaches. “It’s not warm enough for that. Your muscles will get cold, and you’ll pull something.”

I added the last bit to make him feel like an athlete. It works. Thank God.

“I saw a lot of hard work today,” I tell them. “Did you have fun?”

Their heads move up and down.

“Good. There’s no sense in being out here if you aren’t having fun. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to ask you to work hard and hustle—because I am. Everyone understand?”

They nod again.

“Hey, Coach,” Braylon says. “When do we get to practice hitting dingers?”

“What’s a dinger?” The boy who nearly tripped over his own feet wipes his nose with the back of his hands. “I don’t get it. A dinger? Like . . . a wiener?”

The group laughs, much to the delight of the jokester.

“A dinger is a home run,” I say once the laughter subsides. “And you can’t hit one if you don’t make contact with the ball. Right?”

I wait until they all nod or mutter their agreement.

“So we practice hitting the ball, using good mechanics, making contact. The dingers will come,” I say. “But baseball is about so much more than home runs, guys. It’s about working together to move the runners around the bases. Backing each other up. Communication. The little things like that are what makes the game both fun and successful.”

I can see that I’m losing them, and I don’t want that. The last thing I want to teach unintentionally is to tune me out.

“We’ll meet here again on Monday at five thirty,” I say.

“Not until Monday?” Ethan asks.

I smile at him. “The field is being used until Monday. It stinks, I know, but we have to use what we have.”

“Okay,” he says, kicking at a rock on the ground.

“All right. Let’s get in here and give me ‘Team!’ on three.” I hold my hand in the air and wait until a gaggle of gloves meet it. “One, two, three—team!”

We all drop our hands, and the boys mosey away.

I glance at the dugout to find the two fathers who have situated themselves as my co-coaches instructing the boys to get their stuff. They’re nice guys, and I’m happy for the help, even if Dad said that they’re name-dropping me all over town. Comes with the territory.