Tee-Ball Game #1

Saturday was opening day. We showed up for team pictures at 9:30 AM.

Of course, the whole team wanted to play in the dirt pile. Half of them had on white pants, but Shane was in black (suckers!).

The kids had to wait, so they found ways to entertain themselves. Shane made a few chief discoveries.

I took these pics before the rest of the team swarmed. No one got stepped on.

It was a crowded and active opening day. There are six teams of about 12 kids each in our league. Not bad for a small town.

Here's my kid not lining up and wearing his hat over his face so he could bump into the lady trying to get things organized. He was jumping up on a coach in the picture above.

Shane spotted a baseball under the bridge while we waited for the team picture.

He wanted to walk over to the bigger bridge to look down, but I called him back for the picture (especially since a few other kids started to jog over to see what was up!).

I had to hop in, so I only got one snapshot of the blue horde.

Then it was time to warm-up.

Did you notice the D's on our hats? We're the Dick's Sporting Goods.

Our opponent? The Hickey's.

Giant Food's was up at bat on a different field!

This is not a complaint. It's great that local businesses are sponsoring teams, but those are some hilarious names. I had to resist making all sorts of puns and bad jokes!

I could read the schedule to see all of our opponent's names, but why spoil the surprise?

We took the field first. Shane was shortstop. The pitcher and first baseman saw 95% of the action. Standing around and waiting isn't Shane's specialty. He wanted to be closer to the ball (which is a much better reaction than "Let's go home!"). Grass was picked.

Batting and running was a big hit! (Not so much his actual hit - He clipped it and it barely got past the white line for a good hit!).

The game went much, much smoother than I expected. We even got two outs! Score was tracked by how many kids you ended with. We were 11 for 11. A win!

Shane started to burn out by the end.

He got excited when it was time to bat again. Jubilant, he threw his glove in the air........right on top of the dugout.

"Aannnd there it goes. Sorry, kid." I shrugged. Shane bawled. Blake, the only boy who is less focused than Shane, came over to comfort him, but Shane wanted nothing to do with anyone.

He got out of it in time to bat again. I told him that I'd come back later and climb up for it. I didn't want to do it in front of the kids (especially when the league lady didn't want kids climbing on trees! No non-baseball fun was allowed).

Obligatory snacks after the game always taste better than anything we have at home.

We sat with Iggy and Lucy to chow down.

Shane borrowed my phone for some photography fun.

We said our goodbyes after that. I was true to my word and took Shane to look at the "big bridge" before we moved on.

Carrie had asked me to pick something up for Sonya from Wegmans, so Shane and I stopped in for lunch before we started on our next big journey for the day: The drive to Charlotte County.

All-in-all, a great first game and game day....even with the flying glove! Shane's come a long way sportwise.