memories of those little league games...

I think I shared this last year,but it's still so cute. During a girls s***** game(is it ok to talk girls here???)(I know I can't use the s***** word), one of the players lost her hairbow. The game stopped while she picked it up, put it back in her hair, then the game continued!

This was actually t-ball
One of the boys was squirming....(we all know why!)
Coach told him he was next to bat and he could go after that.
He bravely stepped up to the tee and walloped the ball into the outfield.
He took off running to first as we all cheered.
He crossed first.....and kept running down the line, all the way down the line through the gate in the fence and into the rec building where the facilities were located!!

Gosh, I remember t-ball days as cute kids and precious memories. I've had a 10 year gap between my t-ball experiences and have come to realize how frustrating and irritating t-ball has become to me. I attended my 6-year-old-daughter's first t-ball game this Saturday and came home wanting to shake some sense into some of these parents (surprisingly....it was MORE the mothers). Instead of cheering for their kids, laughing at the mistakes, "gently" correcting those mistakes, and just ENJOYING the whole experience of little kids out on the baseball field for the first time (and it was a BEAUTIFUL day too!)....I encountered a bunch of parents who did the complete opposite because they thought their kids should be the NEXT Derek Jeter! I literally wanted to cry at some of the comments made by the parents to their kids....AND, I was equally appalled at the responses some of these kids had for their parents in return! YIKES! To make things worse, this is SUPPOSED to be T-BALL!!!! The coaches "decided" that they would PITCH to the kids instead, and the parents were all for it! THIS WAS THE FIRST GAME FOR THESE KIDS. Yes, they did give them more than 3 strikes.....but it left ALOT of the kids very frustrated. I'm hoping this was just beginning of the season "over excitement" on the parents part....I can't even imagine if it is like this the entire season. Is this what t-ball has become? I want to see little kids learning to love the game of baseball....not hating it because it isn't fun for them anymore at the ripe old age of SIX!

Here is my absolute favorite story: When my son was a 7 y.o., his team was The Team With The Girl On It. This young lady was very self-possessed and also blessed with several brothers, so she was completely unimpressed by boys and their antics. One day she was playing third base when the batter smacked a dandy hit into left field. Unfortunately, the left fielder, the center fielder, the rover (at this level the league played with four outfielders) and I believe the shortstop were all huddled together in short left-center, squatting down in the dirt and apparently searching for something, in the manner of a person looking for a lost contact lens. Our heroine took one look at the huddle, shrugged her shoulders, marched out to left field to retrieve the ball, and threw it into the catcher, who tagged the batter for the third out as he was trying to put the finishing touches on an inside-the-park home run. The rest of the team came jogging in but the huddle was still out in left field, absorbed in whatever it was doing. The coach started out to round up the gang, but the third baseman waved him off, then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "Hey STUPIDS!!!!" at the top of her lungs. The boys all looked up, saw the inning was over, and came trotting in. The girl looked at the coach, put her hands on her hips and said, in a tone of total disgust, "You can't put those guys in the outfield. Don't you know they'd rather look for worms than play baseball?"