Undefeated

Todd played softball with Ohev Shalom this Summer.   As a fan of the game, the boys and I went to most of the games.  By seasons end we knew everyone, and they knew us!!  How could they not?
As it turned out, Todd's team won the championship and were undefeated for the season.   A real accomplishment!
The boys knew that if Daddy won the last game we were going to he would get a trophy.  They were so excited that he could possibly win a trophy.  A TROPHY.  They decided that, just in case they did not win, he still deserved a trophy.  So we made one!!!!

Ohev Shalom did win the real thing, but Todd's real prize was from his boys!!!

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

    
We spend most Tuesday nights at the ball field. Todd has returned to the game he loves and is playing softball for Ohev Shalom. At first, he just wanted to start playing ball again. But, after being asked to verbally state his softball resume, successes, failures, batting average, world championships (wink, wink) Todd knew he was in for some serious ball. And, he is. His team, the former back to back champions, is currently undefeated and they are hoping to hoist another trophy. Or, at least claim some bragging rights.
So, by the demand of the boys we go to the games on Tuesday nights. I love the ball field, and I love the game, so it is always a thrill for me to spend summer nights watching Todd play. Only I don't watch. Not much anyway, and not because I do not want to. I will focus my attention when Todd is up to bat, but most of the time I am trying to manage the chaos to a somewhat respectable level. Turner, who now runs, does so at full speed towards the field, either chasing a ball or Todd or both. My goal is to get him before he crosses the threshold of "in play," but since he is too heavy and far too active to hold the whole time, I seem to run a lot of laps. Chase and Ryder are pretty good but insist on throwing a ball back and forth.  And since they are too young and still too unskilled to do this with each other, I must play . So, between sprints through the dugout retrieving my toddler I toss a ball around with them. Then they want the food. It does not matter that we eat dinner, either there or before hand, nor that we have gotten into the bad habit of bringing milk shakes to the game, they want the seeds, the twizzlers, the pretzels, the gum!! I suppose we are lucky it is not a beer league.  We always have to take at least one pee break, and by that I mean a walk to the trees below the hill!  And, no matter how many times I say not to the boys insist on picking up the big metal bats and attempting to swing them.
But, still, it is fun.  The guys are all so nice to the boys and answer their questions and will toss them a ball.  And, as it turns out, they are paying attention to the things we tell them and they are learning a thing or two about the game we love.  Like not to put your fingers inside the chains of the fence to protect from foul balls, and why Ross wears black make-up under his eyes.
Tonight I was able to get these cute pictures of Ryder and Turner.  The picture of Chase, who spent a good portion of the evening dumping dirt onto his once clean legs and shorts, did not come out.
We left before the final out because it was getting late, but they won.  Again. We will see them all next week.

Baseball Mom

I started playing softball when I was 7 years old.  My very best friend in my seven year old world, Alyssa, convinced me to play the game much to the satisfaction of my athletic father.  Our team wore golden yellow uniform t-shirts, with BRONCOS written in Black.  My jersey number was 11, the first of only two times I ever wore a number other than 8.  I do not remember anything else about my first year of ball other than these details, but it was the beginning of the11 year stint of my softball career.

I have tons of memories of playing ball, most fond, though not all.  When I was ten, I started playing 12-under travel ball.  My coaches were a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. McCue, and they became the fundamental molders of my skills.  The basics, the knowledge, the foundation...and a lot of McDonald's drive thru's.  Of course, for those of you who have seen me play a field position, their credibility could be shot, as I had a wandering eye to the boys on the ball field next door and a wandering mind to the poetry in the wind. But intellectually, I know the fundamental basics of the game from the skills to the strategy.

So now Chase and Ryder have discovered the joys of baseball.  Typical of three year olds, this new fondness comes along with an obsession that begins as their eyes open at 7am.  "Mommy, I want to play baseball," words I always wanted to hear, now come to me at an irritating octave located somewhere on the pitch scale between "whine" and "excited shriek." 

So we play!  Indoors!  In the sunroom with wiffle balls when we are batting and when throwing, the soft hardball Pop-Pop bought each of them while still in the NICU!  And, they each have to use the ball with their own name on it.  God forbid I should toss the Ryder ball at Chase, that would be a sure act of betrayal.

Ryder is interested in playing but not more so than he is interested in being Spiderman or jamming on his guitar.  Usually, when he plays, he is dressed in what he calls his Benny outfit.  Benny is the main character in the baseball movie Sandlot, a favorite of his, and when he dresses like Benny baseball is his game.  He seems to enjoy playing, the way he enjoys everything, but has a three year old attention span and is checking out the trains, or cars, or kitchen around him, reminding me very much of myself.

Chase focuses well beyond his years, as we would expect.  Fiercely concentrating on every word and every action convinced that each and every day he gets a little bit better. He wants to play!  He wants to be good!  And, he is.  For a three year old!  He can throw hard and straight.  He can hit hard and straight.  We are working on his fielding, which is less than stellar.  He looks like a ball player and he believes he is a ball player.  He likes the way it sounds when the ball hits the bat!  I love it!

I love baseball. I am glad my boys do too!  I hope the continue to.  I hope they become real ball players.  OOH, I hope to be a baseball mom.

Roommates!

Last night I hung out with Susannah Forde. Susannah was my freshman year roommate at Penn State. Here's the thing about freshmen and their roommates, they are randomly selected from the mix of students in your graduation year, and the most you could have in common is that you are both becoming Nittany Lions. Unless, of course, you are amongst the exceptions. The exceptions could be the few who, scared of the random pick and being left feeling alone, hand-pick their roommate from either a choice of best friends who are coming along or even the jerk they never liked but at least they knew that jerk. The exception, as in my case, could also be the athletes. Yes, when I left for Penn State as a naive freshman, I was a student athlete recruited to play softball. This meant I was assigned to the nicer, more centrally located dorms (a disadvantage, I felt, in many ways because we were not with all of the other freshmen) and your random selection of roommate was exponentially reduced to other freshmen on your team. By random selection of freshmen softball players I was put with Susannah Forde and it turned out, in my case, random selection was a much better result than hand-picking a roommate ever could have been.

I remember when we met the first time and we instantly liked each other. She was a Southerner with just a twang of proof in her voice. I was the first Jew she had ever met in her life. And so it went! I really liked Susannah and she became a really good friend. I remember having fun with her.
Several months later I was cut from that softball team and I let it destroy me. As a result I pushed Susannah away due to a scarred ego. We did keep in touch once we were no longer roommates, but only to a degree.


Years passed since college, I had healed and laughed at myself from the softball debacle and, several times, I had searched for Susannah via the internet. The internet, however, had gotten me nowhere until along came facebook. Through the networking site I found Susannah and thanks to her work travel to Philly we were able to hang out the other night.

We had so much fun! Despite not hanging out in the last 15 years, we picked up right where we left off sharing stories of our lives, our husbands, our children. We ate a little, drank some, and laughed a lot.

I regret, still, letting the game I was unsure I even wanted to play in college corrupt a blossoming friendship, but am grateful we could both put it behind us in order to move on and share a bunch of laughs!!