Moms and Baseball Little Leagues
This spring, all hells broke loose at our house. My 5 going on 6 (or 16?) year old daughter joined in the Phillies Phever (we live in the Philadelphia western suburbs) and wanted to do teeball while my 8 & 10 year olds signed up for baseball.
So, 3 evenings every week, dinner has to be ready by 4pm so that they can have an early dinner & go for their practices or games by 5.30pm. My oldest stopped practising chess which he loves very much because it would take too long as his bedtime is 9.30pm.
Then, our Saturdays are spent on the ball field all day too. Luckily for us, we live really close by (across the street) and could walk back and forth to get things done, or my husband or I would take the younger kids home earlier to bath and get ready for bed if the game goes too long.
Sometimes, we have games going on at the same time and they (usually my youngest) get upset that I didn’t watch her whole game. Take last week for instance. it was the last game of the season for everyone. When I was getting ready to take my little girl to her teeball, I decided to stop by the 2nd son’s game to see if they were finishing. So, we drove over, she was waiting in the car & I ran over to the ball park seeing that the assistant coach was helping my son to warm up. He was pitching the next inning – which is the last. This is his first season playing baseball and 2nd time pitching. I missed his first time pitching last Saturday because I went to queue up to sign up for summer swimming lessons. So, I was not going to miss this one. I told my husband to get in the car & take our daughter to her game. (She is still complaining that I didn’t watch her whole last game!)
I grabbed our Canon Rebel extreme, position my nervous self and aim. The team was losing already but their spirits were high and they are all having a ball of a time, literally. My son is the second smallest kid on the team and does not have strong arms either. But he pitched pretty accurately. Although I expressed concern that his ball does not have speed nor power, another parent commented that at this age, accuracy is more important.
In between cheering “go Marshall, you can do it, buddy”, I could hardly breathe. Then, the moment of truth. He walked one kid (coach takes over if they walk 2 kids), let in runs and already struck out 2. The atmosphere was electrifying. The moms on our team & his team mates were all cheering him on. Now, the bases were loaded, Marshall took a deep breath and pitched. (his exact words as he told me while walking home) He struck out the third without letting any runs in the last inning! What a rush of adrenaline! He was so pleased and smiled as he walked back calmly into the dugout while I was screaming & jumping up and down. That is Marshall – my cool 2nd grader. I am soooooooo proud of him!
His coach -who also happens to be the commissioner of the league congratulated him and named him the Closer! We have been lucky as his coach and team mates were great. So, they all learn and progress so much in the season and even though they didn’t win many games, they all had fun at every game!
I will no longer complain about how hectic it is for me to get everything ready & sit at these long games anymore. It was all worth it.
Now, soccer and baseball moms take on a different meaning to me.