Ten For Tuesday: Little Kid Baseball

Baseball season starts up in a few weeks for Ian and we had our first practice today.  I like baseball just fine on its own, but I love little kid baseball.  Here’s ten reasons why.

1.  Little kid baseball teams are most fun to watch when they are all still green.  This makes the hits and runs something to really scream about and the errors something to crack up about.

2.  People watching is all sorts of fun at little kid baseball games.  There is every possible specie of parent there and on full display.

3.  There’s only one place to enjoy sunflower seeds.  There are no ladies on the sidelines.  We are just a bunch of cackling, cheering mothers and there’s no shame in spitting seed shells out in a pile between us.  (I have a bag in my purse – prepared for opening game.)

4.  When you plop down a sum of money at the beginning of the season, you are really buying family fun for weeks to come.  2-3 practices per week and 1-2 games means that your dance card is full and your crock pot cranking.

5.  There’s a moment when a kid makes real honest connection between bat and ball for the very first time during a game.  No matter if it sales across the fence, or turns foul, the look on that kid’s face is a once in a lifetime and I like seeing it all season.

6.  Getting a herd of ten year old boys to do anything with precision and skill is some kind of magic trick.  I like watching a good coaching team direct a ball from home to first to third and then back to home and it all works like a machine.  There’s no coach like a little kids’ baseball coach.

7.  I grew up with three brothers in a football playing family.  While football players always seemed like renegade gladiators, baseball players seem like gentlemen.  I like seeing all these fresh faced boys in their smart little uniforms with their short cropped hair.  Makes my heart pitter patter.

8.  If you have never had a nine year old blow a kiss at you while he crossed home plate, well then, I don’t think I can explain why a dirty stinky boy can make a Mama’s heart pitter patter.

9.  Watching little kid baseball has also meant that I have had to watch my kid fail, suffer the consequences, and rebound – all without my intervention.  It’ll give a lady a heart attack the first few times, but I have grown to really enjoy sitting back and letting him learn on his own and from good coaches.  Life stinks sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t – little kid baseball offers that life lesson beautifully.

10.  There is not a kid out there who is not having fun.  Most of them are trying their hardest and it is all kinds of fun watching that much effort and sheer pleasure colliding in a cloud of ten year old boys.  I am sure ready for game day.