…I was nervous as a cat – for them.  We ran back to Dick’s Sporting goods and exchanged Matthew’s glove with a left hand one (who knew? – last week when we bought them I just assumed he needed a right handed one – turns out when we went to play that he throws with his left – no amount of convincing could get him to adequately throw with the right – and then I remembered his hook shot at basketball – yup! , left handed!)

There were about 200 kids at the field (and that was just the A-L names!)

They all had gear – good thing we (at the last minute) brought our bats – I was tempted not too.   But Riley had insisted!  Most of the kids had played before (if their uniforms were any sign of it).  The fields were wet from all of the rain and snow.  4 kids waiting in line in a muddy field for nearly an hour – FUN TIMES

Apparently there are going to be 14 teams in this age league (last year they only had 8!) – they are going to have an American and a National League branch.  We saw a lot of kids the boys know from school, daycare and cubscouts. 

So we got in line.  It was long and the girls were bored.  Addison had to go potty.  I finally left the boys and we went to the building nearby. Turns out it is a pool house for the neighborhood – CLOSED !  (I held her over some bushes)

Back to waiting.  Finally it was our turn.  Fourteen coaches sitting in lawn chairs behind home plate.  Riley was up first.  He missed both balls to hit and then missed both balls to catch.  He threw pretty far (and hard).  Matthew was up next.  He bat right handed (and hit it both times).  Then he threw the bat behind him (nearly hitting the person who was throwing the pitches…He caught both of the balls thrown to him and threw (well…) like a girl – but it was better with his left hand than last week with his right!

As we were leaving we ran into another kid we knew (we had played basketball with him a couple of years ago).  He’s a brat – I’ve always thought it.

Riley had been talking to him while I was waiting for Matthew to finish.  He says something to the effect that he was going to have his dad pick Matthew cuz he could hit!  We walked away.  Riley was really upset (apparently I had somehow secretly taught Matthew to hit when he wasn’t around!) 

Turns out this kid had been teasing Riley and telling him his father (who is one of the coaches) wasn’t going to pick him because he didn’t hit the ball (but was going to pick Matthew – see how bad it is to catch only 1/2 a conversation!).  I assured Riley that

1) they were both going to be on the same team

2) there were 14 coaches and I was sure that one of them would recognize that he was a talented sports player who just hadn’t practiced baseball a lot but would probably get it faster than most!

3) I really didn’t want to be on that boy’s father’s team (and I was good at not saying because I thought his son was  a brat!).

Oh yeah, I’m looking forward to baseball season!!!

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