Fritz wants to pitch. He’d probably be pretty good, too. He did well last year as pitcher.

Fritz is not on the pitching roster.

Fritz is the best fielder on the team. I’m not being prideful. He has the advantage of having a birthday just a few weeks past the age deadline. He is a really old ten year old and one of the oldest kids on the team. This is his fourth year playing baseball. He knows how to play the game.

Fritz is the third baseman.

Today, they played 4 innings before time was up. That’s 12 outs. Six were strikeouts and six were not. Of the six outs made by somebody other than the pitcher, three were by Fritz and he only played 3 of the 4 innings.

The coach is a wise man putting him at third. Overjoyed might be a good word to describe how he felt about Fritz’s performance today. Fritz, he said (rather giddily), if you are in the field, you will be at third, always.

Unless I’m pitching, he says to me, with hope.

Son, you aren’t going to be doing much pitching, I told him. I had my own story about wanting to do one thing, but having my talents needed elsewhere. I can sympathize.

But that’s the thing about team efforts. It doesn’t matter what I want. The point of team sports is (should be) learning that the self is sacrificed for the benefit of the team.

Good lessons.