Encouragement Baseball

This morning I overheard the very end of a phone conversation Kevin had. He didn’t know that I was so close but I heard him clearly say good-bye then close the phone and say, “That was a grand-slam” to himself. I thought it curious so I asked him about it. He claims he invented a game of solitaire called “encouragement baseball.”

Kevin plays encouragement baseball in his head whenever he has an interaction with anyone for more than a few minutes. He does it with friends and strangers alike. The object of the game is to score a run, which can be done by hitting four singles, two doubles, or a home run. Hits are accomplished by verbal and non-verbal communications that build up, support, amuse, and/ or encourage whomever he is talking to. If he gets a smile, a chuckle, or an eye twinkle he gives himself a single. Doubles occur when the person laughs heartily and home-runs only occur when he can see that what he has said made the person stop and consider that Kevin’s more encouraging view of himself might be more accurate than the view he had previously held. “For a homer you have to see the light-bulb go on in their face,” explained Kevin.

That sounded dangerously insincere to me but according to Kevin insincerity only gets you foul balls anyway. The only way to get a hit was by the effect the encouragement had on the person so it had to matter to him or her. In encouragement baseball you only score with safe hits and safe hits only occurred when you waited for the right pitch. Besides according to him being deliberate does not mean insincerity, insincerity is when don’t really meaning what you said.

“I’ve never been accused of insincerity because I’ve always meant what I said,” he claimed. But I still challenged his sincerity if he tried to play the game with everyone he encountered. Surely that could not be sincere. But he had an answer for that as well, “No matter whom I’m talking to I can always eventually find something encouraging to say.”

That’s my brother. I told him he should write a book and he told me that I had just hit a double. And if at a later date he should call me and tell me that he has written a book and it was partly because of my encouragement then it could be upgraded to a grand slam.