In our town, there are two T-ball leagues that kids as young as 4 can participate in. One occurs during the day, but with our work schedule, that one won’t work for us. So we signed Katie up for the T-ball league in the evening, which is a Town league. That means we get to travel around to nearby towns to play our games. We started practice last Monday and had our first game tonight. The team is made up of 4 to 8 year olds. Yes, there’s quite a gap there. The 4 year olds focus on picking grass and talking to their parents while the 8 year olds run over the 4 year olds on their way to the ball.
Our game tonight was played in a town of about 20 people, and we actually had trouble finding the field. That’s because there really was no field. It was essentially played in some people’s back yard. The local coach put out the bases and we played on a field where second base was right in front of a tree which was right in front of a neighbor’s yard. Next time we need to plan ahead a little more because there were no bathrooms or water facilities at all.
Katie has done a nice job of hitting so far and has followed our repeated message to drop the bat and run after she hits it. In her first game tonight, she was able to reach base 2 of the 4 times she came to bat. She’s been hitting well in practice too. I mean she can’t hit very far, but if she’s lined up strategically to hit it towards the third baseman, it’s tough to throw it all the way back to first from there. She likes to hit and loves to run the bases.
Fielding is a totally different story. She doesn’t like to play the field too much. She can catch a ball throw into her glove, but she isn’t comfortable moving and catching yet. She likes to run after a ball that’s hit into the field, but the problem is there are too many other kids who are faster and pay more attention to the play that get there first. Tonight she broke Tom Hanks’ golden rule of baseball – you know "there’s no crying in baseball". She was sad that she couldn’t get any balls hit her way, and I think she was a little tired. She clung to my leg most of the time while in the outfield during a couple innings. She found an older friend named Grace in some of the later innings and Grace was kind enough to let Katie hang around her in the field. So that made her more comfortable. I asked the head coach if Katie could play in the middle of the diamond one inning where everyone hits the ball. Of course this was the one inning that people didn’t hit it towards the middle.
We have 8 games and a tournament left to go. If we can just get past the whole playing the field, we’ll have a good time.
Eric's space 