My Musings: It's Tourney Time!

For baseball, that is.

Matthew and Nathan started their baseball tourneys today. Nathan's was short and sweet. Matthew's, on the other hand? Well that's a whole other story. Let's start with the easy one, shall we?

Nathan's team, while they are all sweet, little boys, is not very good. Which is good, in a very weird way, because that's means that Nathan's not the worst player on the team. Don't get me wrong, he likes baseball, but not more than digging in our infernal red Georgia clay. (Do you have any idea how hard that is to get out of baseball pants?) But since the team is so bad, Nathan's coach doesn't have a coronary every time a ball gets past him because he's trying to dig for China. :-) The team, while they've played hard and had fun, hasn't won a game all season. They were the 16th seeded team in the tournament which means they played the number 1 team in the tournament who hasn't lost a game all season. Thankfully, in T-ball, each team can only score four runs an inning. Nathan's team started out by scoring two runs in the top of the first, but it was all down hill from there. The game was called at the end of the fourth inning. Nathan's team lost 16 - 6. The tournament is double-elimination, so they will play again on Monday. I think by Monday evening Nathan's season will be over, so here are some pictures.

Matthew's game was dramatically different. His team, the Yankees, was seeded fifth, and they were playing the ninth place team, the Dodgers. His coach is much more intense than Nathan's coach. If Matthew was digging in the dirt, his coach could very well have a coronary. He's never mean to the kids, but you can tell he gets frustrated when they aren't playing hard. Matthew's league starts with the kids pitching with called balls and strikes for the first three innings, and then finishes with the coaches pitching for the rest of the games with only swinging strikes. The funny thing about Matthew's team is that they get better both offensively AND defensively once the coaches start to pitch. This game was no different. By the end of the third inning, they were down 7 - 0. They weren't hitting anything; they were barely getting the bats off of their shoulders. They weren't fielding anything either. Balls they should field were going right under their gloves. The coach's son had even given up an over the fence grand slam. It was looking really bad. Then, they started with coach pitch. For the next three innings, they did not give up another run. (They were also helped out by the other team batting out of order in one inning resulting in two outs. That was caught by yours truly since I was keeping the official score book.) They scored two runs in the fourth and four in the fifth. In the sixth, they scored one run to tie it up, and had the winning run on third when Matthew came up (and I started pacing). This is where I write that he had the hit that scored the winning run, right? Wrong. He hit a little nubber between home plate and the pitcher's mound and froze for a second at the plate. He was thrown out by a step at first. Bummer. I think if he had started running right away, he would have made it safely. The Dodgers scored one run in the top of the seventh, but Matthew's team came back with two runs in the bottom of the seventh to win the game! The tension? Awful. The relief when they won? Awesome! They were so excited! The kids were too. ;-) They'll play again on Wednesday in the next round, and I'm hoping the game is not near as exciting. Matthew did end up with his own souvenir from the game. He got hit by a pitch his first time up. It hit him right in the upper arm. I think he's going to end up with a really nice bruise, but he told me after the game it didn't really hurt.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual game, but here are some of him warming up.