2 Places, 1 Time

Jason Bay is a major league baseball player.

A highly paid major league baseball player.

Last year he signed a four-year deal with the New York Mets for a guaranteed $66 million.  (Could be up to $80 mil for five years.)

Jason Bay is also a dad.

Three times.

He became a dad for the third time just a few weeks ago.

I know this because it made the news.

Not so much the birth part.

But the... “Jason Bay, the New York Mets’ starting left fielder, has gone on paternity leave and will miss at least Tuesday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants” part.

It turned out that he missed two games.

Two of 162.

But this was an excused absence.

He was on “paternity leave”.

That’s a new policy where a major league dad can get up to three days of “guilt free” leave.   The team can replace the player’s roster position for those days.

So everyone wins.

Except the team.

The Mets lost both games while Bay was gone.

Mets Manager Terry Collins doesn’t sound like a big fan of the new policy.

“Twenty-five years ago nobody left,” according to Collins. “Yada yada yada, blah blah blah... I’m sure the wives are happier.”

Well he didn’t say the yada part.

Or the blah part.

But it was pretty clear to this cub journalist where Collins sits on the new school vs old school fence.

Now as someone who was at the birth of all three of my children.

And wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I can understand where Bay was coming from.

And Texas pitcher Colby Lewis.

And Washington shortstop Ian Desmond.

And any of the future players who will take advantage of this new policy.

But as someone who can’t afford for any of my fantasy baseball players to miss any more games, I can understand where Collins is coming from too.

The bottom line is, as hard as you try, you can’t be in two places at once.

It doesn’t work.

I’ve tried.

And so have my kids.

A few weeks ago my daughter had tryouts for her high school dance team.

High school dance!

Is there anything bigger than that to a 14-year old incoming freshman?

Apparently there is.

On the same day as those tryouts my daughter had qualified for the State Championships of her Science Olympiad.

That’s a competition with categories like “Disease Detectives” and “Microbe Mission” and “Ornithology”.

Words I can’t even pronounce.

Or spell without spell check.

But my daughter can.

And she qualified in three different events.

And as much as she LOVES dance, she said the decision was easy.

It was her responsibility to help her team.

And in doing so, she ended up winning a gold medal.

And in doing so she missed her second day of tryouts for dance.

And in doing so she made the freshman dance team.

Instead of the JV or maybe even Varsity.

Now sometimes you can use a little creativity to be in two places at one time.

For example, last week my son had his first middle school dance.

A big deal.

Even if he wouldn’t admit it.

On that same night, someone had given us tickets to see our local major league baseball team.

Also a big deal.

So I quickly did the math and figured out that we could get to the stadium when it opened up.

See about an hour of batting practice.

Grab a hot dog.

Or two.

Watch an inning.

Or two.

And then get down to school for the last hour of the dance.

Which is exactly what we did.

Best of both worlds.

It probably helped the cause that my son caught a ball during that batting practice.

But these two places/one time dilemmas are not unique.

In fact, we’ve got a big one coming up next week.

You see Wednesday is my daughter’s graduation from middle school.

Bring your kleenex box.

Our schedule was set up perfectly so we could all attend.

Enter Mother Nature.

You see my son’s baseball team was supposed to play eight games last week, including a major tournament.

But rain washed away five of those games.

Well the first of those rain outs has been rescheduled.

For... Wednesday. 

Of course.

The same day as my daughter’s graduation.

Take a guess where my 12-year old son wants to be ... his sister’s middle school graduation or hitting third in his baseball game?

If you said graduation.

You are wrong!

I asked my daughter how she felt about this.

And the girl who picked helping her science team over helping her dance career.

Said he should go play.

“It’s not like it’s my high school graduation.”

Fair point, I think.

So after some thinking and a couple of Bud Lights Limes.

The plan is now in place.

And it's the perfect plan.

For now.

Batter up.