Focus On The Process: From “Let’s Go” To Letting Go To Watching Him Go

An owner buys a team and hires a general manager. The general manager hires a field manager and together they go about building a championship team. Along the way there are hiccups and bumps, and wonderful and happy moments. The road is never straight, but the trials and tribulations — the journey — are what make the culmination that much sweeter.

Those same sentiments also pertain to parenthood. You and your spouse build a family. You raise your kids — you give them the basics, and allow them to grow into their own human beings. Then you teach them the advanced stuff, and allow them to grow into self-sufficient and self-confident teens. And then you send them off to college and allow others to get them to the next level — both in the classroom and out — about life and making your way in it.

Parenthood, like a baseball season — whether it ends in a World Series or the first pick in the draft — is neither straight nor smooth. But it is a joy to behold. Raising your children — whether they follow your guidance and rules and in your footsteps, or branch out on their own — is life’s greatest achievement.

Four years ago I wrote about a trip I took through the Midwest attending baseball games with my son as I prepared to send him off to college. Baseball is and has been our north star, which is the same for me and my dad. From tossing a rolled up sock to an oversized plastic bat in the living room to throwing batting practice at the state championship to playing catch in front of the house as recently as last month; from sitting on the couch watching a random game on a Saturday afternoon to being in Dodger Stadium when our beloved Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series since his birth; from baking in the Progressive Field heat right before college to soaking up the beauty of Camden Yards on the eve of his crossing the next rubicon. Our story goes from me explaining the game to him, to him sending stats and highlights and pithy tweets to me. Baseball is and (hopefully) always will be our glue.

After that trip to the Midwest in the summer of 2021, we snuck in one more game in Anaheim — the Angels vs. the Red Sox. Boston squeaked out a one-run victory, and we left with smiles on our faces. As we drove home, I thought (and wrote) then that he dreamed of the future, while I remembered the past.

Well, dammit if it didn’t happen again. You see, four years of college — four years filled with baseball games in Milwaukee and Chicago and Oakland (to see the Coliseum before the A’s left town), in Boston and Anaheim, and of course, Chavez Ravine — only tightened that bond. Baseball continues to be the glue.

As a parent you hope you give your kids the building blocks for a successful future. You hope you have taught them how to deal with adversity and how to succeed. You hope that you have provided them with the resilience gene and a motor to make it in a world that is confusing and confounding and increasingly contrary to everything we were taught is fair and right. Self-doubt is part of the process; fear is part of the process; anxiety about their well-being is part of the process. One year, I gave all of the kids on my son’s travel ball team t-shirts that read: “Focus on the Process.” I wanted them to do things the right way — the way they were taught — and not worry about the outcomes, as those will take care of themselves. The same is true for parenting, to a degree. You have to worry about outcomes — about health, and a decent job, and surviving on their own. But you have to focus on and trust the process of your tutelage, too.

Last week I moved my son “to life.” He found the apartment, and I provided the furniture and the fridge full of food. He secured the job — in a field very different than my own, but which is his passion — and I explained to him the value of setting up his 401(k) on day one. My boy has done everything I ever could have asked from a son. He has excelled at school, worked hard, made good friends, and readied himself for success. The process seems to have worked. And, in keeping with a theme, he decided to live a literal stone’s throw from Nationals Park.

When he scheduled the date for his big move, he reminded me that the Red Sox would be in Baltimore. So I extended my trip by a day. We finished hanging his pictures, broke down the boxes, and made one more run to the grocery store before we headed north to Charm City. Camden Yards is one of the great treasures in baseball. We visited there years ago before I dropped him at camp. This was a decidedly different trip. The two of us sat behind the Red Sox dugout and watched a Boston team that is oftentimes infuriating and sometimes exhilarating. We ate Boog’s BBQ and watched a kid 18 months younger than my son hit a lead-off homer for our team. We saw a player who has overcome mental health issues slug a game-changing three-run homer. And, once again, we saw the Red Sox squeak out a one-run victory.

I was supposed to drop my son at the train station for his thirty-minute ride back to D.C. But I decided to drive him all the way back. We sat in the car and discussed the Red Sox, and life, and the future. I explained to him that if all goes as planned, you do well enough in high school to go to a good college, where you then learn to live and find something that you love. And then you graduate and begin “adulting” for real. It is all part of the process. And it is beautiful to watch, if not difficult to confront.

When we pulled in front of his apartment, he asked me when I thought I would be back. I said probably in the spring — “we’ll go to a Nats game.”

Standing on the street we hugged, hard. He thanked me for giving him the best childhood he ever could have imagined (and for building all of his furniture!). I thanked him for all of the joy he has brought to me and our family; and I told him how so very proud I am of him. He is 22, full of dreams and wonder and nerves and anxiety. I am much older and full of all the same…for him.

It was a wonderful and tearful moment on a small street in a big city on the verge of a new life. And while I have doubts that the Red Sox have what it takes to win it all this season, I have no doubt that he will succeed.

As I was about to get back into the car for the drive back to Baltimore, my son turned and said to me: “Remember to send me my glove; my roommate has his, and we want to play catch.”

For twenty-two years I focused on the process. The outcome took care of itself.

PLAY BALL!!