Baseball Happened!

 Ezra was a Marlin again this year--ran the number 4 for the 2015 season.  He moved up a level and felt that he had to give a lot more effort to keep up with the flow.  But growth always takes effort.  He started out the season with a lot of frustration--his bat went cold and he wasn't doing much pitching--which is his favorite part of baseball.  There were a lot of older players who were getting the nod to the mound.  Daddy told him to be patient and keep practicing a lot at home so that he'd be ready when the call came.

And towards the end of the season--the call came.  He pitched very well and earned himself a spot in the regular rotation for the end of the season tournament.  This year was a "growing year" for most of our team.  Translation:  we lost A LOT.  But they hopefully gained some character.  We did win a few to help bring up morale.  Here's a series of photos showing a pitch.

He tends to throw a lot of strikes.  Which means that there are often a lot of hits when he pitches.  But a good pitcher trusts his field.  Sometimes this works, sometimes it does not.  Either way he's just happy to have control of the ball. 
We had mostly wonderful weather for baseball.  But we did have two very rainy games.  They happened to be games that were scheduled on turf fields, so no cancellation.  We tossed on our hats and brought hot chocolate or hot tea and smiled our way through.  This particular night there were only two other moms who stayed to watch the game because it was raining so hard.  Since there weren't many people around to cast judgement I didn't bother to stop Henry from swimming in the puddles.  And swim he did--laying on his back and his tummy.  He also chased the local ducks to his heart's content. 

I didn't take many pictures of baseball this year.  Partly because it's hard to tell one year from the next in still pictures.  But also because the very first game of the season Henry fell head first off the top bleacher seat and landed on his head on the concrete/loose gravel below.  Thankfully we have a fire fighter/EMT parent on our team and he checked him out for me (he was fine).  But it did make me try to be a little more vigilant in watching my boy.  Baseball games go 2 1/2 hours, so it's no small task.  We LOVE all the siblings on our team, though.  There were several pre-teen kids who babysat often for me.  And lots of girls Caroline and Nora's age who did their best to herd him around.  Interestingly enough, the same night Henry fell off the bleachers, Nora was eating a "Cup of Noodles" (Yep--I feed 'em lots of organic home made meals during baseball games) and spilled the nearly boiling water all over her bare legs.  I felt like parent of the year for sure.  Two kids were bawling their eyes out and there were a lot of worried looks coming our way.  Everyone recovered and neither have permanent (physical) scars.  In case you're wondering where Tadd is while this all goes on--don't worry--he's out on the field with the boys.  He goes between first base coach and helping in the dugout.  When he gets a break he helps me out with the other kiddos.

 Brothers--one is just harder to see than the other.

Our girls so love playing with their baseball friends that they never complain about going to games.  And that's saying something considering how many games we had (20+) this year.  I enjoy watching my boy play as well.  But I'm not crying over the fact that I get a little break from sports for the summer :)  

A fun note to end on:  chatter.  Baseball chatter.  The boys are old enough now that they've started making noise in the dugout.  I LOVE hearing them cheer.  It helps them focus on watching the game instead of having water bottle water fights and sunflower spitting wars and talking potty talk.  Some of my favorite cheers from this year were:
"Battle baby, battle--hit it to Seattle!"
"Extra, Extra!  Read all about it!  Ezra's gonna hit one, no doubt about it!  First base, second base, third base, home!  These are the bases he will roam!"
All those little voices encouraging each other are pretty cute.  In no time at all they're going to be several octaves lower--one can hope.