The Bitter Sweet of Baseball

Six weeks ago our boys began Little League baseball, well technically Little League T-ball and Little League Coach Pitch. They were both so excited to play and absolutely love playing baseball. Now, I know I’m biased because I’m mom, but they’re both really good too. As far as I can see, they were both the best players on their teams. But again I am their mom, one proud boastful mom too.

The season started off pretty easy with practices, both were at the same school and overlapped on one day. I nominated my husband to be the practice chauffeur, while I stayed home and prepared dinner. It wasn’t until we received the game schedules the end of January, that panic set in. Part of the panic was due to the fact that I was already in a state of being overwhelmed and this news compounded it, but part of it was because of the time that baseball was soon going to consume in our lives. Because the boys were in two different levels of the league, their games were on opposite nights. 

Our little guy had T-ball games on Mondays and Wednesdays while our big guy had Coach Pitch games on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I couldn’t imagine spending four nights a week at the ball park. All I could think about was how were we going to survive? When were we going to eat dinner? When was I going to have time to cook the dinner we ate and when were we going to do homework and practice music? When was I going to lesson plan, grade papers and get the kitchen cleaned after the dinner that we may or may not have had time to eat?

It was the night before the first T-ball game when my husband asked me, “Do you want to take [Lieutenant Amazing] to the game or take [Captain Awesome] to practice?”

 “I want to go to the first game and see the opening ceremony.”

And that’s when he laughed and basically told me too bad. I would have to take the oldest to practice, because he was helping coach the T-ball team. This was a couple weeks into the season and I had no idea he had been helping coach the team. My husband did that to me, just to see my reaction and facial expression. He thought it was funny. I thought it was mean. Luckily practice the next night was cancelled and I got to see our youngest play in his first T-ball game and watch my husband attempt to wrangle 3-5 year olds, trying to convince them to play their own version of T-ball, spinning in circles, wearing their gloves on their heads or kicking them as high as they could. I love T-ball. It’s so utterly entertaining.

And then just like that, it was our last week of baseball. While I was in such a panic to make everything happen, somehow we did it, somehow we survived. Not to say there weren’t a few botched Crock Pot meals. One botched meal happened even after I woke up a half hour earlier to get dinner all ready, chopped the veggies, seasoned the meat, threw it all in the Crock Pot, turned it on; only to come home to raw beef that had been sitting on the counter for approximately 10 hours. I had forgotten to plug the damn thing in. That ended up being a Burger King night, since we didn’t really have any other choice at that point. Another couple meals just turned out terrible, everything from powdery overcooked chicken, to flavorless stew. I think I learned, I’m not really a fan of the Crock Pot, and neither are my kids and most of the time my kids will eat just about anything.

My poor husband probably experienced the worst of the nights, during the second to last Coach Pitch game, this past Tuesday. I had to stay at work for Parent Teacher night followed by an award ceremony for the high achieving students at my high school, so I was unable to help with all of our after school madness. Keep in mind at this point in time, flag football season has started, so not only were we trying to get to baseball games, we were also trying to get both kids to flag football practice for two different teams. 

So I wasn’t there to experience this, but heard about it, when I came home to a surprisingly clean home that night. Somehow Captain Awesome’s baseball jersey that he was supposed to wear that night for his game, ended up in the dogs’ crate and then one of the dogs had peed on it. Of course my husband couldn’t allow him to wear a peed on jersey so he had to wash it immediately. Well then when he went to wash the jersey one of the doors to the washer and dryer room came completely off the hinges. My husband said he struggled with that for awhile, then finally gave up and set the door back in it’s place when the jersey was done and warned me to be careful when I opened it, because it was no longer hooked to anything. 

When he finally was on the way to the game with the kids, he drove past our youngest son’s flag football practice that he had completely forgotten about due to the jersey and wash room door difficulties. Did I mention he’s the assistant coach for that team too? He felt so bad he stopped to talk to the head coach to explain what happened, and found out that the Coach Pitch game had been cancelled because the field was too muddy from the rain that day. So all his efforts and madness were for nothing. I felt so bad for him when he relayed the story to me that night.

I have to say though, not every night was that trying. In fact many of the nights were actually a breeze and I honestly did enjoy every minute, even when I was freezing wrapped in a blanket, wool peacoat, and a beanie, it was so much fun to watch my boys play and to be their loudest cheerleader. To see the delight on their faces when they hit the ball far or caught the ball in their gloves, those were priceless moments. Witnessing their improvements over the season was incredible. They learned so much in just 6 weeks. Watching them play with friends on their teams, building relationships with kids their age, it was all amazing to be a part of the experience.

All in all it ended up that I enjoyed all those nights at the ball park. I sat with the same two mom’s and dad’s almost every night, because they like me, had a son on each of the teams that my boys were on. They became our baseball family. On Mondays and Wednesdays when the little guys played T-ball, the older boys entertained each other all game, playing together in the outfield. On Tuesdays and Thursdays when the older boys played Coach Pitch, the little guys played together in the dirt with dump trucks and excavators, while we parents socialized and watched our sons play ball. 

The last game for both of our boys was kind of bitter sweet. I felt relieved that we were no longer going to be spending every night at the ball park, but at the same time sad that it was over. Each kid’s team had a pizza party in the outfield at the end of the game and each kid got a baseball trophy. They both thoroughly enjoyed the season and can’t wait for next year. I am so glad that they had such a positive experience and I have to say I’m looking forward to the chaos of next year too. Because no matter how chaotic or stressful it was some nights, it was so worth it.