Baseball wrap-up

Noah's summer baseball season wrapped up this past week. They played nine games (one was cancelled due to rain, which would have made an even ten games). His team was made up of 1st and 2nd graders. They seemed to have a good time together. 

 Noah really enjoyed playing baseball. He caught on pretty easily, was a reliable batter and held his own out in the field.

 Levi was a good sport, being dragged to the games and practices. Usually there were some friends for him to play with. On Thursday he was still sporting his Mohawk.

 Noah's last game wasn't his best game and that was hard for him. The game before he hit two home runs, got to play catcher (something he'd been hoping to have a chance to do) and made some good catches in the outfield.

 But Thursday he had to wait through an entire inning for it to be his turn to do anything. That's just how it worked out. The coaches do their best to rotate the kids around the outfield, infield and batting order to keep things fair. On Thursday, the visiting team batted first and it was Noah's turn to sit in the dugout instead of playing in the outfield. Then later in that inning he was at the bottom of the batting list, and it didn't work out for him to have his turn.

 So when it was finally his turn, he swung four times (you get four pitches no matter what in coach pitch) and struck out. He'd never done that all season. My heart hurt for him because I knew that was going to be a big ball of pride to swallow.  He played at first base later on and that didn't go very well. Then at his next up to bat he hit a pop fly and the other team actually caught it.

 The last game was different because two of the coaches were missing (Kirby and Ben) and several of the boys were also gone. Thanks Steve, Brian, Kirby and Ben for coaching the boys this year.

 Noah managed to look pretty happy for these photos, but after this was all done I told him "Good game," and he broke down quietly crying. He was so frustrated and upset at how poorly the game had gone.

 We quietly talked it through and he pulled it together. By the time we left to go eat our "end-of-baseball-season" celebratory supper at the Branding Iron he was over it.

 Good job this summer boys!