Season Final...ly!

The Season Final…ly!

by Jody Worsham All rights reserved for Preparation H

Our last game of the year…finally! No more hard aluminum benches. No more scrubbing red clay out of white baseball pants. No more watching our child pick flowers in the outfield. No more after game drinks and snacks.

You would think by the end of the season, there would be improvements and there have been. Our coaches can catch the wildest ball coming from any direction including from the other team. They have lost ten pounds chasing balls erratically thrown by four and five year olds.

Our team, however, seems to be regressing. They no longer fight over who’s going to get the ball in centerfield. Now they hold their position and watch the ball as it makes its way to the fence and stops. They seemed to have forgotten everything they learned. Of course, they haven’t played a game in two weeks, crazy schedule, so it is possible that they did forget everything they had learned. Now, as soon as “last batter” is called, the entire team heads for the dugout even before the last batter bats. There’s no longer a song played on the aluminum bats and it has become increasingly harder to keep the team in the dugout. Parents are chasing kids out from under the bleachers, from on top of the bleachers, and from the other teams’ dugout.

The little guy, who seemed to run in place, is still running in place. Our child decided to be a switch hitter and bat left handed. He didn’t realize that he had to switch sides of home plate. I will say that he did deliver a smashing left handed would-have-been-a-home-run right into the home plate backstop. The three-year letterman that plays “all-time-pitcher” finally gave up on the hope of any of his teammates ever catching the ball and just started chasing the other team to get them out. He managed to get four players out at one time by racing to first, second, third, and finally to home base…as his fellow players cheered him on.

Maybe it wasn’t by accident that our team was sponsored by a funeral home. There was certainly no life in this final game…well, except from the parents.

Plaaaaaaay Ball?

Plaaaaaaaaaaaay Ball?
by Jody Worsham
All rights reserved to purchase bleach and soap

I must say after five practices and with three games under our belt, our little tee ball team is beginning to look more like the pros each day.

For example, at last night’s game each coach took three boys, lined them up on the third base line and tossed baseballs to them one at a time. The boys stood there, gloved hand raised, and never caught a ball. Then the agent/mamas got into it and yelled for them to move and catch that ball! One did, after first missing the ball, then running to touch the fence, grabbing the ball, taking the prerequisite pitcher hop-hop-jump, then toss to the coach, before the final roll on the grass.

This caught on very quickly with the rest of the team and was repeated over and over as coach after coach raced left and right trying to field the wild tosses. I can only assume that this is Fire Prevention Week at school and somehow the boys got Stop, Drop, and Roll confused with throwing to the coach or they were still on an Easter candy high. The screaming agent/mamas had no effect in controlling this wild choreography so out came the cell phones with speed dial to Dad. Six mamas then stood next to the chain link fence with cell phones held high saying “Your Dad wants to talk to you NOW!”

After this warm up, we were first at bat. “Old MacDonald” has evolved into a sort of Celtic aluminum bat chime of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, easily recognizable if you have a very good imagination. The first fight in the dugout took place just after this. Someone spread the rumor that whoever was first in line on the bench, was the first to bat. Nine agent/mamas and one dad cleared the stands. Six returned and the other three pulled out the cell phones again to attempt to control the fight on the bench.

Our first batter is a pretty good little hitter and wasn’t involved in the fight. He hits the ball past the pitcher’s mound more often than not but, like so many in the pros, has a limited specialty. I have never seen a kid run so fast… in place and cover so little ground. I kept adjusting my glasses. I could see his little knees and legs just a pumping up and down but he was still in the batting box. First out! Luckily, or unfortunately, in tee ball, outs don’t count. You just bat until everyone has had a turn.

The second fight occurred as we were taking the field; something about who was going to be pitcher but this was quickly resolved without the use of cell phones. I am pleased to say we no longer have the human dog pile-up. Now no one runs for the ball. The team members are too busy rolling on the grass or swiping pollen dust and blossoms with their gloves. My four-year-old, I am happy to say, was not. He was attempting to catch grasshoppers in his hat. This morning’s rain will take care of the pollen and blossoms in the air before the next game but the grasshoppers will only multiply. Maybe if I glued his hat on his head…?

After two innings and all the cell phones had lost their bars, it was over. We had completed our Fourth -Fire-Prevention-Review-Pollen-catching-Post-Easter-Candy-High-Choreographed-Tossing- Game. Time for the agent/moms to head home and begin trying to get that East Texas red clay out of those white baseball pants. If the boys were as competitive as the agent/moms are about having the whitest pants on the field I suspect we’d have scouts at the next game. Until then, Plaaaaaaaaay Ball ….or something!