The Tornado played baseball, well, t-ball, for the first time this spring. As he put it, he doesn't get to play real baseball until he turns 6 in the fall.
Quite simply, this was the most enjoyable thing I've done, in terms of watching my kids. I so wish I would have put O and the Bear in t-ball, looking back on it.
One of my favorite things to do with the Tornado over the years he was at home was to play baseball with him I started pitching to him, overhand, before he was two. And he could hit it! He has some kind of hand eye coordination. Also, he loves to hit. So when the time came for him to be able to play on a team, I signed him up, and he was excited. We went to the field together on a cold day in January to sign him up, and he was soooo anxious to get started.
A couple weeks later he had his first practice. They hit a little, threw a little, ran a little, and laughed a little. His friend Chris was on the team, and he was excited to see him there. The games started two weeks after the first practice, and oh what an experience those were.
The teams each got to hit 3 times, with each kid on the team hitting. The last batter of each inning got to run all the bases, so of course that's where the Tornado wanted to hit. Sometimes he got to, other times not. In the field, the only positions of consequence are 1b and the "pitcher". The rest of the areas on the field see next to zero action. As a result, whenever a ball is hit, all of the kids rush and dive on it like a fumble in football. This stopped to some degree as the season went on, but heck, I liked watching them pile on like that!
The Tornado, when told he couldn't play first or "pitcher", often chose to play 3b. As a Rays fan, and Evan Longoria fan, he figured that was a good spot to be. Oh, I almost forgot - each day on the way to the game we would listen to Here Come the Rays, Feel the Heat, and Longoria's walkup song. I guess it pumped him up?! Anyway, he would stand over at third, and every kid that came to 3b got chatted up by the Tornado. he loved it.
When he was on the bases he would bend in half and put his head on the dirt. When they ran off the field he would throw his hat high in the air. He loved the snacks at the end, he loved cheering "Go Mighty Sand Gnats" and hugging the coach at the end of the game. He loved his gummy bears that he would get before each game and snack on in between innings. He just seemed super HAPPY on the field.
After a tough first couple months in school, it was so relaxing to me to see him enjoying himself so much out there.
As the season wound down he said he was ready to play another sport, like basketball or golf, and after 5 months of playing, sure, that makes sense. I know it will get more intense as he gets older if he continues to play, particularly if he's any good. I'll do my best to just enjoy watching him enjoy playing the game I loved to play so much. And to help remind him it's just a game, I'll always have gummy bears there for him too.
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