Yes, There Is Crying in Baseball… And That’s a Good Thing

No one like to disagree with Tom Hanks, but yes, there is crying in baseball.

And, it's a good thing when your baseball-playing son cries.

1. A salient feature of games: they all have outcomes.

2. All humans have emotions, which provide us information and impetus to respond to outside stimulus, i.e. outcomes.

3. Thus, we should expect all humans that play games to experience emotions.

"Okay, so emotions are to be expected, but what makes my son crying because of baseball a good thing?" It means that they care enough about baseball for it to create an opportunity for them to practice how to navigate the world as an emotional being.

The question is what do we want them to practice. I agree with Tom House’s approach: https://www.youtube.com/embed/UAT77-1GNZs?si=hPm95v9SSYQd-4GK.

Summary:

1. Accept emotions as messages from our body: "That was good," "that was bad," etc.

2. Give the message 15 seconds to sink in (in the moment) or 3 hours (post game).

3. Say, "thank you, emotions."

4. Return focus to the task at hand (in the moment) or start the evaluation/improvement process (post game).