Baseball Season

After two months of twice a week practices and weekly games the baseball season is winding down for these boys.  Coming off of basketball I wasn't sure how this was going to go but I'm really glad we did it.  Having two children in sports is much more manageable then four.  They had back to back practices so that really cut down on the number of times we had to drive back and forth.  Penelope and Scarlett even made friends with other girls who had a brother on Tucker's team.  In fact I think they might have enjoyed playing with their friends during baseball equally as much as the boys liked playing.  Not once did they regret not signing up for baseball. 

I enjoyed the weather and sitting an chatting with the other mom at Tucker's practice.

Leon did awesome at his games, I'm so glad I took this video of his very first time up to bat.

He has came a long way since then.  He now touches all the bases and doesn't pass his own teammates.  But he does run home as much as he can even though they are really only supposed to run one base.

Tucker's games were so different than Leon's.  An hour and a half felt like forever sometimes.  The pitchers in general had a hard time getting the ball over the plate, so it was just like watching walk after walk after walk.  There was a game where Tucker didn't get the ball once, and he was walked both times he got up to bat, and everyone after him walked as well.  

Baseball is just a lot of pressure.  It seems like the game just rotates who is under pressure the whole time.  Where as other sports seem more like a group effort.  

Tucker really wanted to pitch but the coaches didn't choose him to do that this season.  I think in the end he was ok with that.  On this last game he got to play first base, which he was really excited about.  Even when playing first he only got the ball once.  I think there was only 2 or three hits from each team the whole game.

Even though sometimes I was bored I really could see the value that this game was bringing to Tucker.  Their team lost most games, and not all the boys took it well.  Tucker also struck out one time and during that same game he missed a big ball that gave the other team a home run.  It was a rough game for him.  I was worried about him emotionally, but he handled it ok.  He didn't cry or get angry like he could have but I know he was feeling bad.  It is important for the boys to learn how to deal when they make mistakes, when they lose, or when their teammates make mistakes while the stakes are so low like this. 

During this last game Tucker was the very last batter and the bases were loaded.  I could tell he was nervous but excited.  We really encouraged him to swing at anything he thought he might be able to hit and it worked.  He got a nice hit.  In fact he made it all the way to third, and brought in three RBI's.  Their team won! Wahoo, he was excited.