A Happy Friday Post

I've just finished coaching perhaps the funnest game I've yet coached. The league I coach in is a nine and ten-year old pitching league. For most of the kids it's the first time they've seen real pitching.

To make a long story short, we were down 11-3 going into the bottom of the last. We hit and walked and hit and walked and the bases were loaded and the before you knew it, we were down 11-7. A kid on my team who's not been hitting at all ropes a ball to right field, I'm waving my arms like an idiot and the kids are rounding the bases. I see the cutoff man throw the ball to third high and I send the kid who hit the ball home. The third baseman backs up to try to catch the overthrow and forces my runner to swing wide. The ball hits the fence, the opposing player picks it up, throws it home and the runner is...OUT! at the plate. We lose 11-10 on a play at the plate!

A phenomenal game. Sure we lost, but I was proud that the kids hung in there and got to feel the joy that baseball can bring. Sure we lost, but the kids didn't give up when things looked really bleak. Sure we lost, but tomorrow we play again and we will be ready. Sure we lost, but to look at the bench and see a whole gaggle of nine and ten-year olds wearing their "rally caps"-- which is the luck-bringing act of turning your hat inside-out--was the greatest.

Baseball. The greatest game ever created.