A Baseball Saturday
The day started with Dylan and I heading to the field mid-morning for his 10:30 tee ball game. We had a cooler in tow, for it was our turn to supply the team snacks. I also volunteered to help as "bench coach" which is a fancy way of describing herding cats. The boys range in their interest but almost none of them know where to go at any given time, so I say them in uniform number order and made sure the boys had a helmet and bat when it was their turn to bat. To get a sense of the "competition"; when one of our boys decided to take a bathroom break in the middle of the inning we had four boys leave their defensive positions at the same time and the game was remarkably the same. Dylan fielded a few balls but was unable to connect with the first baseman to record outs. The last batter of each inning hits a "home run" to clear the bases to we can change sides. Dylan covered home and received the ball from a teammate to proceed to tag "out" three consecutive runners at home. Or not, the plays sort of have an open interpretation to them in tee ball.
We returned home after the game to get our lunch. I was tired! I am not used to parenting other children and definitely not non-stop for a couple hours.
Next it was Sonya's turn to play. We got to the field early, around 1pm, to help prepare the field. I dragged the field and set the bases in place. Been years since I did anything like that, so even those mundane things have a novelty that is still fun for me. I'm also one of the three assistant coaches and maybe my best contribution that day was telling the girls to take a water break. The kids were playing catch in the outfield waiting for the other team to show up; the sun was getting the better of them. The other team arrived a little late, but we got started quickly. The pitching machine is still a little challenging for many of the girls, I believe this is the first time playing organized softball for many of them. Somewhere around half of our team does not know the position names and gets confused when told where to play defensively. Likewise, they will ask where to throw the ball and a couple still get confused about when to run the bases and in which order. After striking out a couple of times against the machine, Sonya came to bat with two runners on base and two outs. After getting two strikes, she hit the ball hard enough to roll into the outfield grass. I was coaching first base and wildly yelling for her to keep going, and she did. Her first hit of the year was a double, driving in two runs batted in, creating our first (and only) runs of the year (after two games).
We left the field somewhere around 6pm to get some well deserved ice cream. We were tired, but everyone seemed to really enjoy the day. I know I did.
We returned home after the game to get our lunch. I was tired! I am not used to parenting other children and definitely not non-stop for a couple hours.
Next it was Sonya's turn to play. We got to the field early, around 1pm, to help prepare the field. I dragged the field and set the bases in place. Been years since I did anything like that, so even those mundane things have a novelty that is still fun for me. I'm also one of the three assistant coaches and maybe my best contribution that day was telling the girls to take a water break. The kids were playing catch in the outfield waiting for the other team to show up; the sun was getting the better of them. The other team arrived a little late, but we got started quickly. The pitching machine is still a little challenging for many of the girls, I believe this is the first time playing organized softball for many of them. Somewhere around half of our team does not know the position names and gets confused when told where to play defensively. Likewise, they will ask where to throw the ball and a couple still get confused about when to run the bases and in which order. After striking out a couple of times against the machine, Sonya came to bat with two runners on base and two outs. After getting two strikes, she hit the ball hard enough to roll into the outfield grass. I was coaching first base and wildly yelling for her to keep going, and she did. Her first hit of the year was a double, driving in two runs batted in, creating our first (and only) runs of the year (after two games).
We left the field somewhere around 6pm to get some well deserved ice cream. We were tired, but everyone seemed to really enjoy the day. I know I did.
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