All-Stars

Today was All-Star Day for Jack and Kate. It's an annual thing for their baseball leagues where all the teams gather at Lyons Park and get their individual and team pictures taken, compete in tug of war and sack races, eat hotdogs and ice cream, participate in skills competitions, and play an All-Star Game. In the past it was just the competing and the eating, but now Jack is in Minors Division, and he was an All-Star. So he got to eat free food all day, get a special All-Star jersey, and then play in the game with all the other All-Stars.

Kate did the tug of war and sack races. And she was really into it. It was kind of crazy. Before it started she said, "I don't want to do the sack race." We told her she had to, and she did and did it well. Then she not only did the tug of war, which her size-challenged team actually won somehow, but she joined in on a bunch of other teams short a player or two and helped them out.

And then she got ice cream and sat near the baseball field with a few other little girls and played with Barbies for two hours.

Jack finished 2nd in the pitching competition. It was this thing in the batting cages where you had to hit a target I presume some 45 feet away. He advanced through to the finals losing only at the very end, according to him after about 6 rounds. I don't know if that's correct, but I do know they called his name at the awards ceremony and he got this cool little trophy. Pretty awesome.

They had pregame warmups, introduced each player, lined them up on the baselines. They stood silently while somebody sung the National Anthem. It was crazy, like watching a real All-Star Game. Just one of those moments you feel lucky, not to have an All-Star Game but the whole baseball league. Another coach commented to me on how respectful the kids were. Pretty cool.

Jack went 2 for 3, handled his one infield chance cleanly and got a putout at second, couldn't make a play on a well hit ball to the outfield. His team lost 15-13 but it's an All-Star Game and it doesn't matter. They're all winners.

After the game we walked home -- another great thing, we can walk home after a day at the ballpark -- and Jack asked if I wanted to throw the football around. The football? I said. He said, yeah. So we put his pitching trophy inside and went out in the backyard with a ratty old Nerf football and had a catch.