Youth sports was time well spent for my family, and now it's time to say goodbye

My kids, Michael and Steven, are 18-year-old twins and seniors at Issaquah High. They played their last high school baseball game Saturday in the 4A state playoffs in Lacey, losing 6-0 to Olympia after beating Camas 6-0 earlier in the day to advance to the Elite Eight.

I'm writing a letter to them, but it's also to other parents who have gone through this or parents who will experience it in the future. And what I'm referring to is the sudden end of your kid's sports career.

———

Hey Mikey and Stevie,

Congratulations on having a terrific season. Sorry it ended like that, and honestly, I'd have mixed feelings no matter how it ended, even if you'd won the state championship. Sure, that would have been a happier conclusion than the one on Saturday when that left-handed pitcher from Olympia dominated your lineup. But it still would have marked the end of something that has been a big part of your life and our family's since you started playing when you were 6 years old.

Those tears, I know they didn't come from losing your last game. I cried for some of the same reasons. You were probably thinking about it being your last game with all of your  buddies, which makes sense because that's what you enjoyed about playing baseball the most. It wasn't about the big hits or big games you won, it was more about those kids in the dugout and the fun you had.

I thought about all of the good times in the past, which seemed like yesterday but was actually many years ago. Your years in Renton Little League when you played at Honeydew Elementary were the best. It wasn't much of a field, didn't even have an outfield fence, but man did we have some fun there.

Those two years when you were All-Stars, Stevie, I'll never forget the home run you hit at the Pac-West field down by the airport, and Mikey, I'll never forget running after your first home run in West Seattle, wanting to get that ball for you. And when the Renton All-Stars were eliminated from the district tournament when you were 12, I stopped and got out of my truck on the way out of the parking lot to take one last look at the field, already starting to get sentimental about the end of Little League.

Then those years with the Bellevue Dragons and Lakeside Recovery, your summer league teams, tough to beat the holiday tournament titles and trips to San Diego and Las Vegas, not to mention Yakima, Wenatchee and the Tri-Cities. Some people think it's crazy the money we spent for you to play on these teams and go on these trips, but they were family vacations built around baseball featuring time together at fields and hotels.

Remember when you were 13, that trip to Park City, Utah? You were in a parade with all of the other players, walking down main street, probably feeling like a pretty big deal. We drove down with our dog, Willie, who had gone blind, and let him swim in the hotel pool.

Or how about that tournament in San Diego last summer when you won three games on the final day to win the title. We celebrated that night like you'd won the World Series, and that might be the part I will miss the most.

It's not just the games, it's the time with other parents. Most are like your dad, analyzing and over-analyzing games that really don't mean as much as they seem at the time. I'll miss the pre-game and post-game get-togethers with other parents at the you-name-it dive bar, like the one we had Saturday at the Viking Lounge in Lacey.

While you're Tik-Tokking or Instagramming with your teammates about girls and whatever else, we're talking about your last game or your next game, sizing up the competition as if we're major-league scouts.

And at night after our kid goes 2-for-4 with a double and two runs batted in in an Issaquah win, we sleep soundly. When you go 0-for-4 in an Issaquah loss, we toss and turn and hope for a better game the next time, wondering if we should talk to you about a swing adjustment or just shut the hell up, which is what I usually did. You knew enough about your own swings to figure out what to do, and if you didn't, your coaches could help you out. You didn't need your dad chiming in.

You are better players than I ever was, good enough to play college baseball. But you have chosen to just be college students instead of student-athletes, which I'm fine with now, though it took time for me to fully accept that decision. I wondered why you wouldn't want to keep playing, even if it were at a junior college or small college level. But that was more about what I wanted, not what you wanted. I had to remember that it's your life, not mine.

You knew what it would take to play baseball and be a student at the same time. It would be a nonstop schedule filed with workouts, practices, classes and homework and not much time for anything else. I think you really like baseball but don't love it enough to make that kind of commitment, which is good by me.

I'm proud of you guys.

Mikey, you played your entire high school season with a broken bone in your hand. The doctor told you to take six weeks off when the season started, but you said no to that, understanding it was your last season. If you had pain to deal with, so be it.

And Stevie, always knew you were going to hit some high school home runs. The first one in the season-opening jamboree at Newport, and those two last week at the district tournament at Bannerwood Park, way to go little man, that was awesome.

You still have two months of baseball ahead with your summer team, the Washington A's. Just go out and have fun with no pressure whatsoever. I'll still take videos of your at-bats and send them to you, hoping you continue to tear it up..

As baseball players, you two goofs have given your parents 12 years of absolute joy. Just do me a favor: After you take off your uniform for the last time, keep swingin' for the fences, even though you've already knocked it out of the park.

Love, Dad

Jim Moore is a longtime Pacific Northwest sportswriter and sports radio host on 950 KJR at 10 a.m. weekdays with Jason Puckett, and writes a regular column for the Kitsap Sun. Contact Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @cougsgo. 

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Jim Moore saying goodbye to my boys baseball career