About done with the Fall Ball travel season and I can say that this has been the weirdest Travel ball season in a while. He's back on the A team but the team truly is "extra Reps" for the school team. Anyways... Aiden's been doing very well but he's in a very tough spot. It's his own doing. Because of the narrative, he tells about himself through his actions in the past and sometimes through emotions, he's made his path to success so much harder. I envy the parents of the kids who are just studs day in and day out and if they have a bad day they get tons of slack.
Last Saturday Aiden had a terrible game in the field. He was just completely absent-minded. Throwing to the wrong people, missing a fly ball, etc... The coach called him out repeatedly but Aiden couldn't get his head on straight. Found out that he was fighting with his GF and she ended up breaking up with him right after the game. Anyways... he got some hits but that was completely overshadowed.
In the tournament this weekend he had a really bad first game at the plate (0-2 & hit into a DP) but then went on to bat 3-5 with a walk and didn't commit any errors in the rest of the games. That being said it's as if he did nothing because they lost all of the games. He batted the entire weekend at the bottom of the lineup even though the rest of the team literally got no hit or close to it. He was great on the base paths too.
He mentioned to me that after the second game Saturday one of the coaches mentioned to him that they wanted him to be more consistent and of course, we all do but he's not even 14 yet and baseball is hard.
Currently, he leads the team in Avg (.385), 2nd in OBP (.556), & 2nd in OPS (.943), RBI (4), 2nd in PA/BB, 2nd in BB/K, 1st in HHB, 1st in LD%, 1st in BA/RISP (.500), 2nd in least LOB.
He is outworking everyone too but the coaches and parents complain about the lack of energy in the dugout my son says that he's not that guy yet on the team (there's a leader but he's not a great leader and doesn't give his all but others follow him).
The above stats are on top of him also doing well in the JV games (8th - 10th graders).
Its just like they have the narrative about him and even though he's changing it (and if you've been following along you know what a long hard road its been to even change it some so far), it seems like the path is just so much harder for him.
This summer they were so high on him in anticipation and potential and then he got into some games and wasn't used to the live pitching yet, was nervous, etc. I got him to talk to a sports performance guy about 4 times and now he's doing great but the image they have is the what bad could happen versus what good he's doing.
Thanks for listening.