Chapter 14 - BRADY LOSES BASEBALL
Eric Collins kept his rule.
Brady was removed from the travel team for the remainder of the season.
Not because the school demanded it.
Eric.
Private family consequence.
Brady exploded.
He told the investigator:
“Rosalie ruined everything.”
There.
Still externalizing.
Then his counselor asked:
“Who threw the backpack?”
Brady:
“I did.”
“Who threatened the recording?”
Silence.
Then:
“I did.”
“Who made the bus-stop rules?”
Another silence.
“Me.”
“Then who affected baseball?”
Brady cried.
Thirteen.
Not a movie villain.
A kid realizing consequences have his fingerprints.
Eric later admitted he had made baseball feel too central.
“I told him character matters more than winning.”
Good.
Then spent five years acting as though baseball performance determined the temperature of every weekend.
Children hear behavior louder than slogans.
Eric began family counseling with both sons.
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That did not erase school consequences.
It gave the boys somewhere to become more than the worst things they had done.
