I'll Never Survive

Many things have happened. Percoset from the surgery prevented me from remembering a lot of them. . .but here is something important. I will never survive my children being in high school. Nothing to do with drugs, girls, etc. I can't handle the pressure of the sports! Seriously!

N. pitched in his first game a few weeks ago. He did ok, but not great. I was shocked when the coached decided to have him pitch again. This time he did great. I sat through his inning, but since it was 3 days after my surgery, I went home right away. I was so sick to my stomach, and I thought it was from the heat, but truly I believe it was from the nerves!

Here's the even bigger thing. . .
His team is ahead in the standings by 1 game. Tuesday, we played the team that beat us (and is only 1 game behind us.) We were the home team. It started off terrible. In the second inning we were behind 10 to 2. Keep in mind that they can only score 5 runs in an inning (or 8 batters, whichever comes first). Slowly we started to catch up. In the 6th inning (we can only play 6 or 1 hour 45 mins--whichever comes first) N. was in the field at 2nd base. There was a man on 3rd and 1 out. The ball came at N, he stepped on 2nd and threw to the catcher (the runner was going.)

In the previous inning, the catcher had gotten the ball, but forgot to tag the runner. So--N throws to the catcher (a long way for an 8 year old from 2nd base!!) The coach had sent him thinking SURELY we would overthrow the catcher, because at this age they usually do. Guess what! Perfect throw, catcher sweeps across the baseline and tags the runner--3rd out!!!

We are down by 2. We're up--last bat. Someone gets on base with a single. Someone pops out. N. is up. He hits a double (they can only get 2 bases with each hit) so now the other runner is at 3rd and N is at second. Another out. Someone is up to bat--he hits a single--runner on third goes home. N comes to third. By the way--Daddy is coaching third!!!! N starts to stop at third, but the fielder has thrown the ball to third and overthrown it. S. sends N home. He starts toward home--the third baseman recovers the ball and throws it home. The catcher catches it. . .but he is too late. N has already crossed the plate!!!! We're tied!

The next batter gets up and pops out. So--if N had not made that throw to the catcher, they would have scored again and been up three instead of 2 runs. If he had not gone home and had stayed at third, he wouldn't have been able to score and we would have lost! He got the game ball. The other coach went on out to the field to start a new inning (we play machine pitch during the week). Our scorekeeper (the official one since we were home team) told him they could not start another inning because we were at 1 hour 42 minutes (you can't start a new inning with 5 minutes left. . .don't you love all these rules!) and besides that, we were at the 6th inning, so that ends the game anyway!

He REFUSED to believe us. He kept saying we can't end on a tie and we had to keep playing. Our coach checked the rule book (he is also on the board of directors, so he knows the rules) and sure enough, you can end on a tie and each team gets a 1/2 game on their record. It wasn't that our coach didn't think we could win, we had a pretty good chance, he just wanted us to get to play these guys in a live pitch game. Also, he thought they had bad sportsmanship and just wanted to shut them up. The coach refused to shake hands with our players and our coaches (classy, huh?) This is the same guy that took a sandwich ON A PLATE with him to the first base coach's box in the 2nd inning. I'm SO GLAD we didn't get that guy as our coach!

We took the kids out for pizza and all was well--except for the fact that I may have given myself and ulcer! Whew! I don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm trying to convince N to take up chess or competitive lawn mowing or something. . .

This is from the day he pitched. . .