I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised that one of my children is the kid on the t-ball team who is WAY more interested in digging in the dirt than playing ball. He gets upset when we leave for t-ball practice and bring bats, mitts, and balls rather than shovels and pails. (Go figure. We’re nuts, I know). This would be Zachary. He seems to be the anti-t-ball t-ball player. Obviously, we’re having them play t-ball for the experience (learning the game), the fun (being a part of a team), the exercise (it is a sport, after all). We don’t have any major league dreams…though we wouldn’t argue should one day, we find ourselves, looking back and laughing at our sand-digging t-ball player who now plays (then-now, as in the future) professional major league baseball and pays for his parents’ early retirement. This trip down memory lane will all happen, mind you, while we sit on the deck of a yacht in the Mediterranean. No, we don’t have any lofty goals, I swear. 

Mike and I watched as Zachary – who was manning second base – put his mitt on his head and began spinning on one leg. Holding the mitt in place on his noggin he looked like a…

“Maybe we should’ve signed him up for ballet,” Mike says, reading my thoughts.

“Or not,” Mike quickly adds as Zach had spun himself to dizziness and fell on his butt in the sand.

The next Zach Moment was watching our nonviolent child trying to shove the runner off of second base. (Zach later responded with, “I was supposed to be second base, not him!” We explained that it’s actually the runner who should get to have a foot on the base most of the time and Zach would need to do a better job of sharing his space).

The coach was tossing grounders to the kids having them “alligator” their hand and glove to get the ball. Zach went after groundballs by squatting, mitt on the ground at the ready and then lazily watching as the ball rolled past him, seemingly unable to mentally process the fact that the ball will not automatically roll directly into his mitt. Coach, Mike and I all yell encouraging and enthusiastic words of, “Go get it, Zach!!” When Zach finally goes after the ball it’s often in a creative way – a Russian dancer-type squat-walk, and then he’d occasionally try to the throw the ball in a clever way (head hung upside down, etc.). Somebody’s gotta do something.

When it was Zach’s turn to bat up at the Tee, he proceeded to hit the T rather than the ball – quickly realizing that instead of being an embarrassing situation the whole team of 5-7 year old boys laughs hysterically every time someone does this…so why would you bother wasting your time up there by hitting the ball when you can crack everyone up?

And then when it was Zach’s turn to run to base what’d he do? (After WEEKS of the kids practicing running the bases and calling out, “First! Second! Third! Fourth…no wait, Home!”). Zach decides to take a short cut and runs straight to second.

Then again, one of the boys’ teammates decided to just pick up first base and take it with him as he ran towards second, so I suppose Zach fits right in! Our first game ought to be VERY interesting. I can’t wait!