The first game of the season was yesterday and it was a great one. We have played in Druid Hills Youth Sports for many years. It is way more serious and alot bigger commitment than Grant Park. At the kids age now they have 2 practices a week and then games on the weekend. I really loved it but it was hard. The kids mostly played it in the Fall when it was a little more laid back. Grant Park is really laid back. Carter and Hunter can be on the same team and there is only one practice a week. I showed up with a glove and helped toss balls to the boys and they made me third base coach. Thats how it usually goes and it all volunteer so I didn’t complain. There were some girls on the team who had never played before. It was cool because they got hits. Its coach pitch, 5 pitches no matter how bad per batter, max 5 runs in an inning, over throw is one base, but you can keep overthowing so you teach the kids to get it to the pitcher.
Hunter kept fouling out but it was good that he was hitting the ball, he has had a real hard time in the past. He was hitting alot of fouls and they were going foul both ways. I think he is going to get alot better. Carter really loves baseball. He was killing the ball on offense and they made him pitcher for about a third of the time and he caught one that was hit straight back to him. (The kid pitcher stands next to the grown up coach pitcher). It was looking bad for our team when we were down by 5 in the last inning. it was 5-10. We started getting lots of kids on base and two runs were scored and there were 2 kids on base and 2 out when Carter came up. He hit a really hard home run and cleared the bases to make it 10-10. The next kid up was the girl who had never played, she got a great hit hard but hit it right to the pitcher. They ended it right there which was ok for this super laid back league. In the past I have seen some bad parent behavior in this league even though it had a reputation for being laid back. But this day it was really good, all the parents cheered for both sides and everyone knew kids on the other team and cheered for them. At one point someone asked who was winning and a Mom said “Is that all thats important?” and a Dad said “No, but its way ahead of whatever is second.” He was kidding but he had me laughing all day.
Later that day it was so nice I wanted to get out more. I got the bikes out and we all 3 rode to Candler Park to practice some more baseball. It turns out they are re-sodding so we turned back and went to Iverson Park. We had a great time.
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