Tee Time
You have never witnessed a baseball game until you've seen it played by 5-year olds.
Tyler started T-ball this month, and I'll admit I was a bit apprehensive when it all started. He'd practiced with our tee at home and could make solid contact with the ball. (Some of them rolled over 30 feet!!) But he wasn't throwing as well as his 3-year old brother yet. As for catching... well, in true Tyler fashion you could hit his glove with the ball and still get blamed by him for a bad throw because it didn't stick in the mitt.
Nonetheless, we trekked to the first practice only to quickly discover that most of his teammates were at about the same level. Whew! The coach of the team seemed to have the right attitude. We were there to have fun and if they learned a little something about the game on the way then all the better. For several evenings the kids practiced hitting and throwing and chasing balls they intended to catch.
Then the inevitable occurred. We had a dress rehearsal for a game. This was the first time we had ever arranged the kids as a team, and yes "arranged" is the right word. We assigned the kids to positions and tried to arrange them on the field so they were in the neighborhood of the position they were playing. For example, we thought the 1st Baseman should be on the right side of the pitcher's mound somewhere short of the outfield fence. We weren't trying for perfection here. Still it was a struggle. Finally we decided if we had all the fielders with their gloves on and facing the batter that we were doing okay. Then we settled for 80% success at that.
We weren't expecting much when the first ball was hit to the group of kids mingling in the vicinity of where you might expect to find a shortstop. But no one expected what ensued. Every kid on the field who saw the ball hit (which was only about 3/4 of 'em - and didn't include Tyler) ran to it. In retrospect this wasn't too surprising, but when the first kid touched the ball all the others dove on top in what appeared to be a midget rugby scrum. Now I don't watch a lot of baseball on TV, but this was a new twist on the game. As the "game" went on, we even discovered kids in batting helmets in the scrum pile. It seems the base runners didn't want to be left out of the fun.
Through all this, Tyler remained fixed in his spot on the field. A ball was even hit 3 feet to his right, and he never flinched as the crowd went by him in joyful pursuit. I couldn't resist asking him about this after the game. It turns out he felt he had been assigned to protect and guard that 4 square feet of infield. This was his position. But much like playing catch with him, if the batter didn't hit him in the glove with the ball, well then... it must be somebody else's ball.
We still have hopes for the academic scholarship.
