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Milo's first glorious All-Star game. Or was it?

by Matt Richtel

06.02.2016

Milo's first glorious All-Star game. Or was it? Read this. It's about You.

This weekend, Milo, age 7, played in his first "all-star" baseball game. It was more, really, of a hand-selected team that will spend the summer playing together. "A dream come true," Milo said to me when we walked onto the field at 7:15 Saturday morning, the chalk lines beautifully drawn, a real scoreboard in the outfield, dew on the grass.

He'd awakened me at 6:15 with a knock on my forehead (I was supposed to be able to sleep until 6:45). But he was so damn excited. He'd lost another tooth the night before and looked like a grinning pumpkin.

The teams lined up before the game, we sang the national anthem, the real thing.

Milo led off the first for the Pirates. Down two strikes, he lined a shot between the shortstop and third baseman. He scored the team's first run. Bottom of the first, he was on the mound (only for defense; just this first game, the coaches pitched) and he leaped up and caught a high-chopper that could've gone over his head and threw a guy out at first. I was in the little stands keeping the score book at the request of the coach. At the start of the third inning, a player for the other team (they were stacked with big, strong players; one opposing player's dad played for the St. Louis Cardinals) hit a shot to the shortstop. Our shortstop made a great play, and a laser throw and got the guy out by a step. I was so busy in the scorebook, that I hadn't realized Milo had been moved to shortstop. He'd made that play. Nice work, buddy!

On the game went. Milo kept up his stellar work. But the other team was too tough, our guys too green. We lost 14-5. No biggie at all, right?

After the game, Milo and I went to the car and he looked so dejected. "Great game, bud. Great game. Why the long face?"

No answer.

"Because you lost?"

"No! I don't want to talk about it."

A tear streamed down his cheek.

Hmm. What did I miss?

Eventually it came out.

There was a parent who had been yelling at the kids during the game. I hadn't noticed because I was in the stands -- on the other side of the field. The parent was being particularly negative about what the players should and shouldn't do. (Yes, I'm being cautious here because this is a public forum). The parent hadn't yelled at Milo in particular but had been so negative in general to the team that it had ruined Milo's glorious first game.

Broke my damned heart.

Needless to say, I took care of it. Promptly. I won't go into details here. But it won't happen again, not on my watch.

I hope not on yours either.

Matt Richtel is a New York Times technology journalist and novelist.  He won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his series on distracted driving.  It was also the basis for his bestselling, non-fiction thriller "A Deadly Wandering." He lives in northern California with his family.  Learn more about Matt at MattRichtel.com.