Champions

We went to Basking Ridge, New Jersey last weekend for Jack's first Summer Travel baseball tournament. About three weeks ago he tried out for the team, and two weeks ago we found out he'd made it. Since then it basically rained for most of the last two weeks and he had all of one practice. But the tournament was on the schedule -- kind of a kickoff to the summer season -- so we just figured we'd do the best we could.

SATURDAY

It was pouring rain when we woke up in Port Chester, and Jack was scheduled to play his first game at 12:45. No way, we thought, but apparently the weather was a little better in New Jersey, so we headed out. Jack and I both dressed in our uniforms (I'm an assistant coach) for the drive, thinking all the way, eh, we'll get there and it will have already been cancelled. But no, it had cleared up, and although it was really unseasonably cold, and we both had 2-3 layers underneath our shirts, we played.

I played little league baseball as a kid and through grade school, and have been coaching Jack's rookie team the last two years, but the rookie team, at least, is nothing like this. A good share of the kids are playing are, well, not overly interested in the proceedings. Some of them like to bat, and a few like to play in the field and are focused, but it's probably 50-50 at best. Here, almost all of the kids were focused, competitive, and pretty good.

We weren't sure what to expect out of Jack. Would he be overmatched, nervous, intimidated. In rookie ball he got pitched to by his own coaches last year and a pitching machine this year, so he'd never even seen a kid pitch to him -- never faced a wild 8-year-old thrower ostensibly trying to strike him out (really, though, they're mostly just trying to throw strikes, period). I had images of the first pitch hitting him and that being it for the weekend or something. Not really, but I just had no idea what to expect. Nor did the coaches, evidently, what with only one practice; he was slotted 11th in the batting order out of 13 kids.

But when he stepped up to the plate, I was kind of amazed, because he looked like he knew what he was doing. To be clear, Rookie ball isn't at this level of play, and we don't watch a lot of baseball, so I was basically impressed by everything Jack did: digging in at the plate, stepping out to take some practice swings, swinging at pitches. Didn't look the least bit troubled, intimidated, or overmatched out there.

And then his second time up, in the bottom of the 5th of a 2-2 game with two outs and two on, he ripped a looping line drive beyond shortstop that drove in what proved to be the winning run, keying a 5-run rally in a 7-2 win (games are six innings). The crack of the bat, him running to first and getting a pat on the back from the coach. I don't know if it was the most exciting moment of my life, although I may have said as much shortly afterward, but I don't think I'll ever forget it.

After the game the other coaches were talking: "That hit was HUGE....!"  "If he doesn't get that hit, we don't score any of those runs...." Opposing coach also said, "You guys got some clutch hits from the bottom of your lineup..." Uh, yeah, it was pretty awesome. Except for the part about it being really, really cold.

We had another game that night, a 7:30 p.m. start time which around our house is usually known as "putting the kids to bed time." I remember when we got the email about the game and were all like, What? And Emily was nervous and skeptical, as she has been throughout most of the Summer Travel process (prior to this weekend...!), and we figured, well, Emily will take Kate back to the hotel. But nope, we all went to the game, and our team was excited about the earlier win, and their team couldn't throw strikes, and we won handily. And happily went to bed, about two hours later than our kids normally went to bed.

And as I filled in the starting lineup the head coach gave me, I noticed Jack was batting 9th...up three spots from his previous spot. And he played all 5 innings in the field, as well. (The best six kids were in the infield and pitching, and the remaining seven alternated the outfield and the bench. But Jack was on the field for about 2/3rds of the innings, which was pretty good, though he didn't actually touch a ball on defense all weekend. I think there were about 4 plays by outfielders the entire weekend...not much gets past the infield.)

SUNDAY

We didn't have a game scheduled until 5 in the evening, so we hung out at the hotel for a while. We all went swimming in the indoor pool, which was the highlight of the trip for Kate. (Fortunately she's also friendly with little sisters of a couple of Jack's teammates, and loves to tease and run around after the boys, so she had fun at other times too.) We tried to get our increasingly tired kids to nap without much success, although Kate did nap some when I brought Jack to the field a little early for batting practice, but it might have been starting to catch up with Jack a bit. Not that he'd admit it.

That evening's game was a nail-biter against another 2-0 team. The winner would make the 4-team playoffs the next day, and the loser might too (did, ultimately), but it was a tense, close game. I know Jack had a walk and a groundout...don't think he had another hit. But they won by a 6-2 score and it was a happy bunch that went back to the hotel for dinner and drinks.

Adults stood around and talked proudly, kids raced around like crazy people, playing basketball and dodge ball and tag, some jumping in the pool.

I think I wanted Jack to do Travel baseball for two reasons...one, to maybe become pretty good at baseball, because it's a full schedule of games and practices all summer, and it's clear that at the end he'll either be pretty good, or maybe he'll be tired of baseball. (So far he's clearly leaning to the pretty good side, and oh yeah he loves it.)

Second reason was that I thought it would be good for him to hang out with a bunch of boys (mostly boys) his age at stuff like this. He has playdates and such, but it's not the same, and he doesn't have brothers or nearby boy cousins. And of course, he had a blast, and there will be two more weekends like this one this summer, plus all the in-week practices and games. So far, so good.

MONDAY

Jack's semifinal game was midday. In the morning we had a leisurely breakfast, and Kate and I went down to the pool together. It was nice, because we had the place to ourselves, and she's like a little fish, jumping in and out of the water over and over again. "Watch me, Daddy! Watch me the whole way!" And she swam and laughed and jumped and I watched. On the way back to the room she announced that she wanted me to put her to bed that night, "because I had so much fun swimming with you." That was nice.

Jack's team won the semifinal easily. They had some batting practice before the game, and maybe that was a factor, I don't know, but they had three 5-run innings in the first four (you can only score 5 runs in an inning, after which it's over whether there are 3 outs or not). Jack had another hit similar to the game-winner the previous day, and a hard foul ball down the line. They all hit the ball well, and celebrated going to the championship game, which was 4 hours later. Yes, our weekend which had begun with thoughts of, "Maybe we'll play well enough to make it into a playoff game Monday morning, or maybe we'll just get up and leave," had become "We're playing a Championship game at 4:30 Monday afternoon, and oh yeah tomorrow morning they go back to school." We got a late lunch at a wings place, the kids messed around like the 8-year-olds they are, and I got the starting lineup from the head coach. Jack had moved up a spot to 8th.

And, we won. Jack had a turn at the plate with two on and two out and a 5-2 lead and I don't think I've ever wanted him to get a hit so badly, but he struck out, but he was fine. Not overmatched, not all sad about it, just disappointed as you'd expect anyone to be, but fine. You never know; some kids didn't handle adversity that well. Because, well, they're 8.

But we got the last out in a somewhat jittery final winning, won 5-3, and were champions. We celebrated on the field, got a big trophy and a bunch of little trophies for all the kids (although bigger than you might expect...pretty nice), and there was applause and happiness and a lot of smiles.

Kind of crazy. Not only didn't we really think the team would do well, and didn't know exactly how Jack would react to the whole thing, we didn't have any idea how good they would play...how good 8-year-olds could be. You think of kids that age pitching and stuff and assume all the games will be like 15-12 or something. But it was real baseball, and the most fun I've had watching a baseball game in quite a long time.

I work in football, and that's pretty much the only sport I've thought about the last few years. There's the Red Sox, but I'm not as huge of a fan as I once was. My own baseball experience ended around high school, leaving out college softball or occasional fill-ins or whatnot, plus the Rookie coaching.

I don't think I realized I could enjoy baseball this much, or get into it so much. Mostly it was that Jack was playing. The rest, though, was that it's a pretty awesome game.

It was great to see parents applauding us after the wins. Lot of happy faces, happy and proud parents. It was even better to see the happy kids, whooping it up and just kind of giddy. I don't know the other kids well enough to say, but with Jack it was clearly a mix of happy, proud, and really, really tired. The way home from the game, the two hours back to Port Chester, he slept in his seat, head bent over sideways on top of the armrest. He looked all gangly, arms and legs and exhausting, snoring quietly in his seat.

And he was happy.

Before he fell asleep, I told him I was going to get a catcher's mask, so he could practice pitching to me. "Really?" he said, happily. Sure, I said. And so I will.

Because I get the feeling we're going to be playing a lot more baseball.