The Baseball Bunch

This spring and summer I have four guys playing on five different baseball teams. David and Cameron are both on a traveling tournament team in addition to their in-house league teams, and Justin and Alex play on the same coach pitch team, coached by my husband. That’s a lot of baseball. And a boatload of laundry. I love everything about baseball though, so other than the logistics of getting everyone to and from where they need to be, I enjoy it. Especially on a night like tonight where David’s team won by a single run in a very well-played game. Cameron had a practice at the same time and place as David’s game, and Justin and Alex played a game at the park that is pretty much in our backyard.

With Alex I use the term “played” rather loosely. By the time I showed up after David’s game, he was sitting by my friend, Amber, telling her stories about The Wizard of Oz. He dismissed my suggestion that he go up to bat or grab his glove to play the field, telling me that “it’s boring.” I’ve known Amber for a long time, and Alex has met her several times before. But we see her regularly now since her son is playing on Justin and Alex’s team. He knows her name is Amber, but for some reason has decided that her name should be “Jade.” And since she told him she thought Jade was a cool name, he’s called her Jade for several weeks. It’s so weird. So he spent most of the game talking with Amber/Jade, both names of colorful ornamental stones, which I doubt he knows.

David grabbed a high throw, and threw down a tag on this guy trying to steal second. Out.

A visit to the port-a-potty is apparently more interesting than the ballgame.

He gets the Most Cutest Player award at least.

Justin in his straight-up stance with David, Penny and Alex (sort of) looking on.

He got a hold of that one.

© Jennifer Alys Windholz, 2012

There’s A…

Today when I woke up there was snow on the ground. It melted by noon, but still, it’s April 16th for God’s sake.

Later when I left to go to the store, U2’s Beautiful Day was on the radio as soon as I got into the car. Not sure if that’s a local radio station’s idea of a sick joke, or if 43 and windy in mid-April is just the new normal.

Justin and Alex used to have a game they’d play on the way to daycare in the morning. Whenever they’d see a basketball hoop on someone’s driveway or at a park, they’d shout out, “There’s a hoop!” It was cute mostly because of the way Alex said it, with a long, almost Swedish Chef “ü” umlauted, accent on the “ooh” sound in hoop. “There’s-a-huupe!”

Justin came up with a new game this afternoon. “There’s a pot hole!”

I think at this point the pot holes outnumber the hoops by about two to one. And there are a lot of hoops in our very kid-centric neighborhood.

© Jennifer Alys Windholz, 2011