The Grand and Glorious End of Baseball (for 2008)

Our baseball season ended last Wednesday much to the sorrow of the boys but with some relief to me. I am ready to get back to regular dinner times and regular bedtimes. Overall the season was a good one for the boys (not for the teams which lost most of their games). They learned alot about the game and all of them improved in their baseball skills.

At the end of the season, there are several All Star tournaments. We participated in one of them. Nathan was asked to be on the All Star team and he was thrilled about it. We combined with the All Stars from another team in the next township over and entered the tournament. The plan was to play three games; one on Friday and two on Saturday. Unfortunately, we had rain and lightning on Friday and they cancelled the games. So now we had three games on Saturday.

Saturday dawned bright and hot. Seems like this season came in like a blizzard and went out like a desert. It was hot all day, getting up to 90 degrees. I know that doesn't compare to the temperatures of most states, but when you are used to living in the tundra regions, you lose that ability to make it through the hot days. Anyway, the picture above is Nathan getting warmed up for the first game at 9 am.

He got a great double in his first up to bat and made it to second. Unfortunately, he was stranded and never got to score.

He pitched in game 1 (9 am) and in game 3 (5 pm) and did pretty well in both innings, striking out two and assisting in two put outs to first.

Nathan played a 9 am game, had about 30 minutes between games and played another at 11 am. I don't have a picture of his great catch because I was cheering. He was playing right field and caught a pop fly. Then he fired it to third and the third basemen was paying attention, caught the ball and tagged the runner (who had tagged up at second and was trying to get to third) for the double play.

Their next game was at 5 pm. So with the price of gas, we decided to stay in town instead of driving all the way home. Nathan and I walked around the big local Art Fair and then shopped the used book sale at our library. Then we retreated into the library's blessed air conditioning and rested until the last game time.

Here's Nathan looking pretty good after the last game. He was tired and hot and so was I.

So the results were that his team lost all three of our games. In game 1, they got quickly mercied, but in game 2 and 3, they put up a very good fight against some hard teams (that are playing today in the semi finals). We had some great plays and some not so great misses, but it was a fun time for the boys and Nathan said he would do it again if he could. I however am glad that we don't have another tournament this weekend. I did get a lot of knitting done while I watched. My dh stayed at home with the other three children for which I was grateful. It was so hot and I enjoyed watching Nathan play without having to hear three other children tell me how hot it was.

The combined team at the end of the day. Nathan is fourth from the right.