Baseball Confidence!!

Two nights ago I was sitting at Zack's baseball game thinking a million different things, it's been a rough week around here to say the least.  Zack's coach came up to me and said, "hey, I want to talk to you and Zack after the game".  In my head I have to admit that I was thinking that Zack had done something wrong, and was dreading this conversation.  As the game got over and the crowd dwindled down, I walked over to the coach.  What he said next completly blew me away!  The coach said that he had been around baseball for many years, he has played it, coached it and will watch it any chance he gets, he basically lives and breathes baseball!  The coach told me that Zack had a natural talent for baseball and by far out of the whole team, Zack was the most IMPROVED player!!  He literally begged me several times to keep him in baseball promising me, that if he stuck with it, and worked for it, he has the potential to be an AMAZING player someday!  A few weeks prior to this conversation, Zack got hit by a ball (really hard and right on the bone of his elbow) he cried as he took his base, but then he didn't stop crying, so he had to be taken out of the game for a bit.  That was a really bad day for all of the kids because at least 1/2 of the kids playing got hit and cried until they were taken out and replaced.  Anyway, that same day, at the next chance Zack got to bat, he hit the ball HARD!  3 runs came in because of his hit, it was AWESOME!  Back to what the coach was telling me, he said that kids either get hit by the ball and become afraid of it, or they see it as a challenge and try their hardest to overcome it, and in his opinion, Zack has chosen to see it as a challenge.  He told me that no matter what has happened in the inning, Zack is ALWAYS the first to tell his teammates what a good job they did (even if they didn't) and helped give them some confidence.  I can see that in my son, he has the biggest heart of anyone I know.  The coach said that it would really be a mistake for me to take him out of baseball, because he believed that Zack could accompish GREAT things in the sport.  I literally almost started to cry at that point, it is always nice to hear good things about your kids, but this was more then just a good review, this was heartfelt and sincere.  That coach will never know what he did for Zack's confidence that day, Zack has had some struggles recently and really needed to hear from someone besides his parents, that he has worth.  In all honesty, I needed to hear someone else say it as well!