The Car Ride Home After a Bad Baseball Game

The most important twenty minutes after a game are not in the cage. They’re in the car. The car ride home after a bad baseball game is where a lot of families quietly wreck the thing they think they’re building, because it feels like teaching when it’s really just a performance review with his dad in the driver’s seat.

He already knows he struck out. He already feels the error. If you spend that ride litigating every at-bat, every coaching decision, and every kid who played in front of him, you are not developing him. You are teaching him that the game is a place he has to survive you.

What to do instead

A lot of coaches use a 24-hour rule before they talk to parents. You can use a simpler version with your son. Don’t talk about the mechanics on the ride home. None of it. Ask if he had fun. Tell him you love watching him play. Ask what he thought he did well, and then let him talk. If he doesn’t want to talk, turn on a song and leave it. That is not going soft. That is keeping him on your team so the yard tomorrow still has a chance.

I have found with my own boys that those questions, and that sentence — I love to watch you play — put a little smirk on his face and make the fire burn a little brighter. Particularly on a normal Tuesday, not only after a good game, which is when we all remember to say it.

The mechanical adjustment can wait for the yard tomorrow. That’s what the 20 minutes is for. Support in the car. Intent in the grass. If you mix those up, the car becomes the lecture and the yard becomes a fight, and then you’re wondering why he doesn’t want to go outside.

What you are actually teaching

You need to model it too. Do you speak negatively about the coach or another player on that ride? The dad who only talks about how great his own son is is teaching the son the same thing. Sit next to him. Help him see the other kid. Then let him be the one who walks over.

If the game is starting to strain the relationship, that is the problem. Treat it that way. Whose dream is this? is the longer version. Follow along on X at @cageratbaseball. I write there the same way I write here.