Batter Up!

Today was the annual Freshman team Father-Son baseball game at the high school. Let me tell you, there is not much better for making a mama laugh than to see her boys having a great time doing something that they love.

The game was the Dads vs. Kids, but it was a little lopsided. There weren't quite enough dads there to make a whole team (on a side note.... WTH?? If your son has something like this that gives you a chance to bond with him doing something he obviously is passionate about... why wouldn't you be there? I can understand if you are physically unable to participate --there was one dad like that, but he was still there -- but why not at least be there?!? You will be the first person to whine and cry when your child is in trouble with the law or some girl in a couple of years about how you "never saw it coming". Well, DUH!!! If you were involved with your child you probably could have headed it off! Sorry. Pet peeve. I'll step down off my soapbox now. Oh, BTW, my ranting does not apply to dads who were unable to be there due to circumstances beyond their control, or for work. This only applies to those dads who couldn't be bothered to get up off their butts on a Saturday morning. Yep. Stepping down now.)...where was I? Oh yeah, not enough dads to complete a team. So, they borrowed two of the boys from the freshman team, and they were kind enough to let my little Bug play as well.

It was evenly matched the first couple of innings, but only because the kids weren't playing as well as we all knew they could. I don't think they were taking the Dads very seriously! That changed during the 3rd or 4th inning (to be honest? We -the moms- lost track of what inning we were in fairly quickly! We were busy manning the grill to feed all these hungry boys!) when the Dads came up to bat. They batted through their entire line up, and then some! After that, the boys started working a bit harder.

It was such a cool thing to watch these boys and their dads enjoying competing against each other in this kind of setting. Each dad, if he wanted, got the opportunity to pitch against his son when he came up to bat. (Coach ended up walking Jock, although I'm fairly certain that wasn't the original plan!) And something fun and low-pressure was just what these boys needed, I think. We had our first game this past Wednesday, and I'm just going to say that it wasn't pretty. So its been a long week for them, and this game was a great way to relieve some of that stress that had built up.

I think it also gave the boys a new respect for their fathers, watching them get out there and battle bad knees and smaller lung capacities, and just put everything they had into sharing this experience with their sons.

Plus? I got to play with fire and man the grill. Coach won't let me do that at home. Can I just tell you that it is truly amazing what that activity will do to lift someone's spirits? I might just have a tiny inkling of why men enjoy grilling so much!

So really? It was a total Win-Win for everyone today.