Everybody likes ice cream, and no, I’m not talking about the Raekwon song. Yes, ice cream became the central theme of our baseball game on Saturday morning. It was great.
Our game was at 830 in the morning, first one of the day. We took the field with just enough kids, and got this weekend started. It was a good game for us; we had many kids on base. One of the things I’ve noticed is that we’ve left a lot of runners on base so far this year. Thankfully in this one, we’d start to drive some of those kids in. We’d score a total of 10 runs in our 10-7 win; maybe we need to play the early game all the time.
Anyways, back to this “ice cream” thing. When the bases were loaded, the chant for “bases loaded” was said in our dugout; everybody thinks about hitting that grand slam. We have zero home runs so far this year. But in conversation with a couple of the kids, I said I’d get ice cream for the whole team if we hit a grand slam. Man, that word spread around like wildfire; every kid knew about it within minutes, and every single one of them was absolutely hyped up. We had the bases loaded multiple times throughout this one. No, we did not hit a grand salami. But I took it one step farther. I said, OK, forget about a grand slam, how about any home run? Of course, every kid was agreeable to this; just another opportunity to score ice cream. Nobody hit a home run on this day.
But the ice cream vibe was in full effect on this early Saturday morning… One of our pitchers got in trouble; I went out to talk to him, with the catcher and the entire infield. I told him… one more walk, and I have to take you out. I usually give the kids a chance to work it out… if they’re throwing strikes, giving up hits, that’s fine. But if they’re walking kids, if they can’t throw strikes, I have to come get you. He looked at me and nodded. He started the next kid off with a strike, then a ball. After the ball, the catcher shouts… think about ice cream! I absolutely loved it; it was the perfect thing to say. And wouldn’t you know it… he gets the next 2 kids out to get out of the inning. Just awesome.
So did we get ice cream at the end of this one? Well, an inning earlier, on defense, we turned a double play on defense, our first of the year. Although the kids are 11 & 12 years old, turning a DP on defense isn’t easy. This one was tailor-made… 4-6-3. When we came back in the dugout, I said… ice cream for turning a double play??? The kids were like… really?!?! I said, sure, but we have to win the game. We did, and the hunt for someone pushing the ice cream cart around the park began; they found him, and surrounded him like he was about to get a beatdown… haha. $51 later, the kids (and me and another coach) had our 11am ice cream treat, and, and… one of the other coaches insisted he paid instead of me… no problem…haha. That was cool.
A winning record at 3-2, we’ll try to sweep the weekend on Mother’s Day; I really hope we do. I really like this group of kids. Much more to come…
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