LIttle League Meanderings Round 2

So, the second game of the season and my 3rd and 4th graders' team is undefeated.

My first thought was of how silly it is that guys who grow up and don't leave the town they have been in since high school still call each other by their last names when they're in their forties. All these guys calling each other by their last names or high school nick names. . . very interesting phenomenon.

And this time I sat away from the crowd, by myself, playing Nokia bowling, which by the way is rigged.

So, I'm feeling pretty carefree, thinking my kids are occupied, playing another endless fruitless game of rigged Nokia bowling (watching carefully of course, when either of my sons is batting or the ball heads in their general direction). I am noticing that my 4th grader is actually playing "misser" instead of "catcher." Now, this is not an insult, because he tries very hard when someone on the team throws him the ball. But when he is supposed to be catching the pitches that the machine throws, he knows that the umpire is behind him, so he doesn't move very much ... he'll catch it if it's convenient, but otherwise he just kind of lets the ump get it and throw it back to the coach to feed into the machine. I bet those high school umps dread the innings when he is playing "catcher."

But boy, can he hit. He's not a fast runner, so he has to hit the ball FAR ...

Anyway, I digress.

So, all the sudden I notice behind me that there is some commotion. There are three or four men next to the fence looking up. I get this sinking feeling and only one word comes to my mind. "Dominyk" Yup, my eyes go up and there I see my youngest son, perched on top of the barbed wire fence, with his jeans caught. Two or three guys are trying to help him get down. I'm sure that somewhere in cyberspace there is a blog out there by someone else who is writing something like this,

"Tonight at my sons baseball game there was a young boy caught on the barbed wire on the fence dividing the fields from the highway department storage area. I asked myself as soon as I saw him, "WHERE is that boys MOTHER? Why is he not being better supervised."

So I ambled my largess over to the fence, and looked up and said, "Well son, it looks like you need more supervision than you're getting." I thanked the men for getting him down and ripping only his jeans and not his skin, and spent the rest of the evening trying to get him to stay by me.

So much for my nice relaxing evening at the baseball diamond.