Baseball Fever

This weekend I got my first taste of intense, crazy baseball parents and coaches. While I have to say the experience was far superior to the many wrestling meets we've been a part of, I was still a bit shocked after our first day of playing. Will is part of a local 9-year old baseball team in which he had to try out for to be a member. I knew it would be a competitive league, and I knew it would be a big commitment, but since he absolutely LOVES baseball, we went for it. Between Will and Charlie, the practices have pretty much taken over our lives and the supplies have put a dent in our checkbook - BUT they are having a blast and learning a lot - so all is good.

This weekend was Will's first game (which also happened to be an all weekend tournament). We started off Saturday morning by finding out one of our best pitchers broke his arm that morning while riding his bike. Not Good. (At this age, pitchers are hard to develop - so this was a major blow). Luckily, we had several others who had been practicing, so our coach still seemed optimistic.

The first game, the kids played great against an experienced team, and when the ref called the game, we had won 7-5. Our parents and kids were celebrating as the players lined up to shake hands when all of a sudden, a parent from the other team started shouting that we still had five minutes left to play. Huh? We started the game at 2:15pm, it was currently 3:50 pm, games are 1.5 hours long - so it was OVER. Over! Our ump, who was clueless, started to doubt himself on what time he started the game... was it 2:15pm or 2:25pm?? We had the time documented as 2:15pm, but the other coach's chest started to get all puffy, his face began to resemble the color of his shirt (bright orange), and he started in on the arguing. The ump bowed out to let the coaches figure it out - what?! As more orange shirts joined the fight, it was clear that the other team was *insane*, wasn't going to back down, and planned on bullying us until they got their way.

The next thing we knew, the game had started AGAIN, and we were playing another inning. The kids were confused, the other team was revved up and enraged, and in the end, they beat us by one. It was totally disgusting. By the time it was done, our kids had played for over two hours, they were tired and upset... and were late for their next game. You can imagine how that one went.

To make matters worse, the ump approached our coach afterwards to APOLOGIZE and admit that he was in the wrong... and that it never should have happened that way. OH GOLLY THANKS. Try explaining that one to your nine year old. "Yes honey, you did win, but then you didn't"...

With two losses from the first day, we were kicked into the 'Silver' bracket for the following day - but we were okay with that. The kids played their hearts out despite missing players (another pitcher got the stomach flu Sunday morning), and the day went much better. The kids played great, we had a lot of fun and guess what - WE WON first place! :-) Great job 9U Vikings!