Welcome Home Plate

by Kurt DeSoto

The doormat at the side entrance to our house is a baseball home plate inscribed with the words “Welcome Home.” I put it there to remind me every night when I get home from work to practice the fundamentals I learned from a wonderful parenting book for fathers entitled Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering from the Game of Baseball, by Jack Petrash.

I have coached baseball for over seven years and it was not until I read Mr. Petrash’s book that I understood how parenting is like coaching and playing baseball. The author reminds us that baseball’s magic number is three. Three strikes, three outs to an inning, three outfield positions, the triple play and three runners on base when the bases are loaded. Parenting and childhood have their magic threes, too. Mr. Petrash describes three important stages of childhood (and parenting), each of which lasts about seven years and which he equates with the early innings, the middle innings, and the late innings.

In the first three innings, the focus is on the child’s and father’s “active” involvement in their relationship. In the next three innings, their relationship centers on the emotional connection between them. The last three innings are more “thoughtful” as the child learns to become independent.These three elements are repeated throughout the book as Mr. Petrash recounts his own extraordinary baseball and parenting memories, including seeing Cal Ripkin, Jr., play his first major league game and taking his two sons and daughter on a 1,000-foot ascent up the steep face of Mount Champlain in Acadia National Park.

Mr. Petrash also discusses how to work both sides of the plate (with your spouse), train well-rounded players (children and parents), coach with a shallow bench (as a divorced, single parent), play late innings (when children visit after leaving home), and start a league of your own (through a father’s support group). He draws from a wealth of experience as a coach himself, as well as a schoolteacher and parent. Mr. Petrash is also the founder of the Nova Institute, an organization that seeks to bring fresh insights into parent and teacher education through a deeper understanding of children. It hosts a web site at www.novainstitute.org.

This book fits a busy father’s schedule like a well-worn glove: it is short (only 114 pages), entertaining and written in a language we can understand--baseball. In fact, you can finish this book in about the time it takes to watch a game. But of course, I don’t recommend you miss Opening Day.

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