Batter Up!

My friend and assistant field hockey coach started coaching varsity softball this year.  She is at the helm of an undefeated team with the potential to play in a State Championship.  And so, of course, I sent her this picture of Rudy "warming up" in the outfield before her first tee ball game this year.  She told me that Rudy looked "fierce."  That's right.  I replied that Rudy may just be the baller who surprises us all.

 I am so in love with tee ball and its slow, mellow, low expectations.  And Rudy has already out-performed our meager predictions for her participation.  She has not once refused to set up at home plate or in the field, and she did not need her coach, State Champion Michael, to put a Lambie on each base as he had planned, to entice her to run the infield.

 She's on a team with Emma and Owen, which is beyond awesome, and Rudy and Emma are the only girls on the team, still game for eye black stickers, which by the way, you should not pull off your child's face in one quick tug like a band-aid.  There will be abrasions and hysterical tears, and you will feel terrible for ruining the springtime fun of little-kid athletics with that unnecessary brutality.  During games and practices, veteran tee-ballers Riley and Marley gallop through the extended outfield with other big sisters, and Jackson stays with them but sometimes strolls through the infield mid-inning to deliver things like a half-eaten apple to Danielle.  Last week, he walked over to Emma at third base to share some crackers with her, and she took a happy bite before running home after her teammate's at-bat.

Last week, Rudy got to play in the pitcher's mound, and thank goodness Jeff was there to guide her in things like actually turning around to face home plate.  She saw a lot of action and threw a lot of balls towards first base, and what I mean is, she picked up some balls, paused, and then sort of pushed them off her hand so that they landed a couple of feet in front of her.  She really needed a cut-off player.