Tuesday, April 27, 2010

I’m a little late to this T-ball thing

My son had no interest in T-ball.  Given that he’s nearly 21 now, I thought that was water safely under the bridge, over the dam and long gone out to sea.  And then back through the water cycle a few dozen times.

But Evan, Andrea’s youngest boy, is playing now, and so I got my first high-intensity dose of it this weekend.

Baseball (and softball) and I have only recently come to terms.  Thanks to some serious dexter/sinister confusion (and liberal sprinklings of “you throw like a girl”, etc.), I never got too excited about that family of games as a kid.

My brother was quite good at it, but either he, too, came late to the game, or T-ball hadn’t yet been dreamed up when we were of the proper age in the early ‘70s.  Back then, the ball was pitched.  Period.

The ball was pitched, and there was a standard complement of nine players on the field.  The outfield tended to play within fart-joke-telling-distance of the infield early on, but otherwise the lineup looked pretty much the same as you’d see on TV.

T-ball is different.  Way different.  I’m not making any judgments here… just saying that it takes some getting used to.

BatterUp

Little League ball can be pretty intense.  The whole “screaming insane sports-parent” subspecies grew out of it, after all. 

T-ball’s a lot more laid back.  I’m starting to think of it as a mass play-date for 30 kids at a time that doubles as family-friendly comedy for those too old to participate.  Oh, and the only consistent formation of scrums outside of rugby that I’m aware of.

It’s an adjustment.  There was a lot of cheering, a lot of laughter and no barking at the kids… even when the center-fielder wandered off in the general direction of Scappoose because that’s where it looked like the kite that had caught his eye might be headed.

My camera’s memory card runneth over with cute, so I can’t include it all here.  This is a seriously pared-down smattering of what went on.

MissedStop First try off the tee.BetterStop Learning fast.

Evan1 Between batters.  Evan’s a pretty serious dude.

EvanAtBat1 As noted above…

EvanSwinging

BatterUp1 Yes, there is a batter in the box.

ItsALook Fashion improv.

EvanAdjusts Evan adjusts for the ball, Mason practices his Pledge of Allegiance.

Intensity I mentioned the “serious” thing, right?

ArrrThat’s what you want to see!

OnBase Don’t lose that helmet!

1 comment:

Seraffyn said...

You wrote it! I'm so glad. Very cute and funny. I hope you don't mind, but I'm sharing this on FB. I love it!