My Saturday weekly feature takes us to Opening Day. We had a parade & festivities followed by the first game of the season. It was a very memorable day.
It was a long day, especially for our team, having to wait to play the 2nd set of games after being there at 9am for the parade. The parade was awesome though, so it was well worth it. A police escort led us in the streets around the park. Our team was lucky enough to be at the head of the parade, holding our team sign and the park sign. I think the kids got a real kick out of that. When the parade started, I told them walk in the streets; they kind of looked like, really? I remember it fun being able to “run in the streets” during our annual block party back in the day. You know, the one where a few neighbors park their car at either end of the block to prevent entry. I loved riding my bike on the street on those days. I’m sure they kids really loved walking in the street during the parade.
The festivities consisted of some music before hand, some juice and cookies for the kids after our long trek around the park, and the lining up of all the kids while they played the star spangled banner. It was all very nice.
Next came the challenging part: what to do the next 2 hours before our game started. We held a mini practice, actually it was like a full hour long practice. Everybody practiced their groundballs, and got a few swings in off the tee. I didn’t want to overdo it, with the sun really beaming on this day. But after we ended practice, a handful of the kids ran around and played tag for about 30 minutes. My son fell on his wrist and put a hole in his uniform pants before the game even started. Still, I think it was great to have this time together. I kind of looked at it as team bonding time, kind of like Maddon likes to do with the professional Cubs. Thankfully my wife snuck me in a cheeseburger from Burger King to help me keep going…
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The second inning, and as it turns out, final inning, was even better. We decided to cut it short an inning considering it was already 130 I believe, and most of us had been here at the park since 830 or so. We recorded the only out of the game. It was a ground ball that we fielded cleanly around the pitching mound. His throw to 1st base was picked up on a few hops; our first baseman then stepped on the bag. We did it!!!
Our boys did really well hitting again in the bottom of the 2nd, with the other team failing to record one out. Although we technically weren’t keeping score, the fact that we recorded one out while the other team recorded none equals a win in my book; hey, the kids were asking, so I had to tell them. Maybe that’s how we’ll “keep score” going forward; whoever records the most outs on defense?
That’s not the most important thing though, not at this age level. The most important thing is to have fun. I think this Opening Day will be etched in the memory of my son and all his teammates for a long time. I hope they are looking forward to getting back at it this weekend; I know I am.
MK
Sounds like a great day. Pretty cool having the police escort with the streets closed off. Definitely something the kids should remember to start their baseball careers.
Congrats on the opening day W…hahaha…getting 1 out=W. Pretty cool stuff. Have to find something to tell the kids so that they can say they won. Nice job!
Keep practicing and working on fundamentals. And get more outs so the wins keep coming!