Yay for my boys!!

First things first…. It’s taken me some time to get over the recent ‘incident’ with Ricky – and I swear I’m still not over it.  I had to drive her home from Jackson’s game on Monday night and I swear I was worried about the cooties my car was surely getting the whole drive home.

This is just a written congratulations to my two boys who both went undefeated in their respective baseball playoffs to win the championship!  Yay for them!  And especially for Teddy who truly loves baseball and has played with various versions of the same group of kids for 4 years now as they made their way up through the ranks to the ‘majors’ within this group and this was his last year with them.  He’ll move on to another division next year and a whole different team. 

So – come with me as I relive the end of Teddy’s game, will you?  It’s the top of the last inning and the other team needs 1 run to tie it.  If they don’t score then we win.  So we’re hoping to stop them!  We get to the point where there are two outs and they have a man on third.  The kid up to bat for them does not look like an athlete.  He looks a little awkward up there and we have our best pitcher on the mound so we’re all feeling pretty good.  Strike 1 – yay!  Strike 2 – yay!  Two outs, two strikes.  We only need one more pitch.  Then the batter looks over to his coach who is acting as the third base coach at the moment so he’s right next to where all our team’s parents are sitting in the bleachers.  So we all get a look at this kid.  He’s shaking.  The stress is too much for him.  He starts crying and he’s just looking at his coach begging for him to make all the pressure stop.  I’m crying.  All the mom’s in the stands are crying.  It was awful to see.  His coach was wonderful.  “You’re doing fine Johnny, just like we do in practice; just put the bat on the ball.  You can do it buddy.  You’re doing great.”  And that little scared kid who was shaking and crying put the bat on the ball and hit a single and scored the tying run.  I’m pretty sure our side of the stands was just as excited as their side of the stands.  We got the third out in short order and went into the bottom of the inning tied; only needing one run to score.

Guess who’s up first?  Yup..Teddy.  Ted’s not a bad hitter, he can usually be counted on for a single, but he can definitely let his mind screw him up at the plate so I was a little worried.  But he swung at the first pitch and crushed the ball with probably his best hit of the season high over the 2^nd baseman’s head into the gap in the outfield.  The other team got it in quickly and he settled for a long single.  The next batter is Adam and lately he’s been struggling at the plate.  We all love Adam but we’re a little worried.  But he got a solid single and moved Teddy to 2^nd. Then Teddy and Adam did a perfect double steal and they were both safe and now Teddy’s at third with no outs! Woo hoo!  The double steal was funny because while Adam is definitely very fast, Teddy is not.  Or really more accurately he does not run fast in baseball.  He makes his coaches absolutely nuts.  He’s just a cerebral kid – and he’ll be ready to steal 2^nd and will make a calculation – “I think I only need to run at 60% of my capacity and I will beat out the throw.”  So that’s what he’ll do – basically saunter to the base while all his coaches and the parents have little heart attacks in the stands.  I don’t think he’s ever been thrown out, but still – it makes us all crazy and he’s been yelled at for it for years.  But this time he ran with all his speed and was easily safe.  We were all feeling pretty good because the next batter, Jimmy, is a solid hitter.  Ball 1, ball 2.  Okay, this looks even better.  Strike 1.  Then the catcher couldn’t handle the next pitch and the ball got by him and Teddy used that little seen speed and stole home for the win.

He was so excited to be the hero of the game.  It was the absolutely perfect way for him to end his affiliation with the great group of kids.  And for it to be his speed was just comical for all involved.  (well except the other team). 

Jackson’s game was the next night and it wasn’t nearly as exciting as Teddy’s game that had gone back and forth all night long.  Jack’s team dominated from the beginning and won easily.  Woo Hoo.  They both got these huge trophies and are very, very excited. 

The only bad part about the whole deal is that in our little league all the teams  have real major league team names and this is Orioles country.  Unfortunately Teddy got drafted into the Yankee’s organization when he was 8 years old which meant Jackson got put there automatically when he decided to give baseball a try this year.  So for years we’ve had to root for the blasted Yankees and unfortunately I think Jack liked playing enough to want to continue so we’ve got a few more years ahead of us.  Really, I refuse to say “Go Yankees!”  I instead say “Go blue!"  I did finally buy a navy blue shirt to wear to games, but alas, I never got around to wearing it.  Oh well, maybe next year.

 This is Teddy's team and he's in the middle without a hat on.

This is Jack's team and he is front and center with gray pants and his trophy tilted to his right (our left) his friend Joe is next to him with his trophy tilted to his left so they form a V together.