Jason Hasselkus

Last night I decided to get out the Wii and have myself a little Home Run Challenge. In addition to challenging myself in the virtual baseball setting, I thought it might be fun to get my 5 year old son involved in the action as well. A little father and son time, some Wii time and not to mention Jaden starts T-Ball in two weeks. So it kinda became necessary to have this moment with him. Any father can attest that when your child comes to you with a question about sports, it’s kind of the highlight of your day to share your knowledge with them. In my case, Jaden asked me to go first so he could watch me and show him how to do it. I thought to myself, well now it’s time to put on a home run hitting clinic for this young man. You know where he’s so impressed he goes and tells his friends that I’m the best, Yeah, one of those moments.
So with Wii Sports, you can play up to four players in a home run hitting contest. Each player takes their time hitting 10 pitches. The object of the game is to hit the ball over the fence, and the winner is determined by how many home runs you get, and then how far your longest home was and the total number of feet your shots went. So, for my first round I hit a respectable 1 home run at a distance of 504 feet. Well now it was Jaden’s turn and he wasn’t as lucky as old dad, he didn’t hit a home run but he did hit a few shots to the outfield of at least 250+ feet. So now it was time for round two, same result, I hit one home run a few feet shorter than the first round and Jaden again ended up not hitting a home run, however he did hit most of the pitches, he really start to get his timing down.
Round 3 is where the momentum turned in his favor and he didn’t look back after that. Round 2 saw me pick up my game by hitting two home runs, but the real surprise was Jaden who also hit 2 homers, however the distance of his homers were much further than mine, so he became the clear winner. Round 4 was more of the same, each of us hitting one homer, his again being further than mine. Round 5, which was my final round because I couldn’t bare to be beaten this badly by my 5 year old, was Jaden’s best round by far. Jaden not only hit 4 home runs, but he actually hit one out of the park. The game displayed “Out of the Park”, which contributed to his total for that round of 2105 feet in total distance of home runs. Well I was impressed and truly happy for my young slugger, but started to think about how it only took 30 minutes for Jaden to go from novice to expert. Maybe he isn’t an expert, but he’s better than dad, that’s for sure.
So with the Nintendo Wii the age gap is decreased, and in my case it was non-existent. One this is true, not only did we have fun playing the game, but my son still thinks I’m a superstar.