The season was done and it was party time. The girls celebrated at the number one ice cream parlour in the world, Farrell’s. It was a lot of fun. They had pizza, a party game where they had to try and find a cherry in a pile of whip cream AND the all important ice cream sundae. Our coach was getting his thoughts together about each one of the girls when it was time for his speeches. He was real emotional and it was great to see our rather “loud” coach become as gentle as a teddy bear. Each girl received their trophy with an individualized picture of them in action, a folder with their name from the banner laminated on it and one of the mom’s gave each player an individual collage of the girls in action during the season. They made out well! The coaches each received a personalized card with their photos of them in action and our head coach received a gift certificate for $50 to his favorite restaurant and a plaque high lighting some of the season. And I received the most beautiful gift basket full of soaps and lotions, candles and other good smelling stuff AND a $50 gift certificate to get my nails done! Woweee!

It was a great, great season. We all wished each other well, hoped to see one another next season and said our goodbyes. And with that, my experience with being a team mom for the greatest softball team ever has ended. To all the team moms out there, I hope your season was as wonderful as mine was and until next time. We’ll see you at the game!

Game day, 9:00. The banner was put up and wait…..what’s this? The opposing team doesn’t have enough players. Could this be true? Would we win by forfeit. No, that would not be the case because while I was waiting to hear what would happen, I received a text stating Game on!

We were the home team and via text messages, this was how the game went:

2nd inning. 1/0 Other team

3rd same score

Thanks

??

Top of 4th 3/0 other team

Gasp!

Just scored

Yes!

Top of the 5th. 5/1 other team

Top of 6th. 5/1 other team

Ugggh!

Not looking good

Coach just got here

They just scored again

And again

Our coach? Whaaat?

Boo Hoo!

Yes. I guess his son had a game

R has been coach

Oh boy

R stepped out on field without calling time. Pitcher was in the middle of a pitch so they got to advance a run,

We just scored

Other team wins 8/2

Bummer. Thanks for the update

You got it

For our team, there would be no second and no third game for us nor a championship game to win. And so our season ended with Tess and her teammate so far away from their team but that loss soon forgotten when it was time to go get on some rides at Disneyland.

Perhaps three practices were one or two too many or perhaps our girls were just tired but whatever the reason, we lost our first playoff game to our arch enemy, the number 2 seeded team. Rats! It was a very low scoring game and the defense on both teams was phenominal. Our girls were hitting the ball but not far enough in the outfield and the infield kept fielding the ball and throwing us out. Us likewise. Somehow, someway the other team scored 3 runs and we left our runners stranded on the base for a score of zero. But that’s OK because we have another shot to win the tournament on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, Tess and another teammate will not be able to play in the tournament game on Saturday due to an all expenses paid trip to Disneyland and California Adventure for selling over 750 boxes of girl scout cookies. I asked one of the moms to keep me posted on the innings so I will be up to date on everything as it plays out. Much luck to you team!

Coach called not 1, not 2 but 3 practices before our next championship game so to change things up a little, I asked if one of those practices could be a scrimmage game between parents and the girls. He agreed and tonight was the night.

I was really, really worried about playing the girls. You see when I was younger, I couldn’t hit, couldn’t throw and couldn’t bat. I still can’t do any of those things but I sure was going to have some fun trying. I never “knew” you were supposed to watch the ball. I would always watch the batter and swing and hoped I hit the ball. I was so afraid that I would completely embarrass myself and not be able to hit against the pitcher who is only 8 YEARS OLD. But in the end, I did and we parents had a great time playing against the team. I thought we would be more like the bad news bears because a good majority of us never played the sport of softball before (I never had) but instead, we did pretty good. We let them have 6 outs to our 3 and in the end it was a tie game.

Some of the parents/girls took this opportunity to stay home and not participate in all the fun but it was their loss. The photos and video taken showed how much fun we had tonight and it will certainly be a memory I’ll never forgot for this great, great season we have had.

We play our second tournament game tomorrow against the second highest seeded team. I’m not sure if the girls will be burned out or ready to play but I hope it’s the second. We do not want to lose against this team. Good luck girls!

This was it. Our first tournament game and it was hot, hot, extremely hot. I didn’t watch anyy of the warm up the girls did because I was around running my mouth, saying hi to this person and that so I had no idea if our girls were ready to play today. Before I knew it, it was time to start the game and take my seat under the shade tarp to keep score. My buddy “blue” was umpiring today and we chit chatted a bit and introduced ourselves. I liked him.

We were the home team and were on defense at the start of the game. 1 2 3, we got their top of the lineup out. 1 2 3, “back atcha” is what they seemed to say to us and we left a runner stranded on base. We held them to zero for the second inning while our at bats scored us a run. Third inning we had a defensive error in the game but we got our act together and held them to one run. At the bottom of the third we seemed to find some energy and we were able to bring in 2 runs. The fourth inning is the start of unlimited runs but….neither team was up long enough to run up the score. 1 2 3 and 1 2 3 and the 4th inning was over. The defense in this game was phenomenal for both teams but we managed to get another run in the 5th inning AND I learned something new: Infield fly rule. What happened was one of our batters hit a very high pop fly and the pitcher dropped it. Our runners on second and first then ran to their bases but the pitcher was able to throw to 3rd base to get our runner out AND the batter was out. Whhaaat?? I had never heard of this but apparently it is part of baseball, softball and has always been part of the league. My friend “blue” took the time during the game to explain it to me since I was keeping score but…..I still didn’t get it so I had to look it up when I got home.

According to Wikipedia:

The infield fly rule is a rule in baseball intended to prevent infielders from intentionally dropping pop-ups in order to turn double plays (or triple plays). Without this rule, a defense could easily turn a pop fly into a double or triple play when there are fewer than two outs with runners at first and second base or when the bases are loaded. If the runners stay near their bases to tag up, the defense could let the ball drop, throw to third base and then to second (or home to third or home to third to second), for a force-out at each base. If any of the runners stray too far from their bases, the defense could catch the pop-up and double-off any runner that failed to tag up. When the rule is invoked, the batter is out (and all force plays removed) regardless of whether the ball is caught, thus negating the possibility for multiple outs.

Ummm, this still didn’t make any sense to me. I had to call my mom. She explained it to me. I think I understand it now.

Although the game was close, I wasn’t too stressed out about it as the coaches were. We play the number 2 team in the league on Thursday. Good luck girls!

First place! We won our game today and clinched the First Place spot of the season! Woo hoo! The girls took their victory run up the “hill” next to the ball field, posed for pictures and ran down to us cheering parents. It was a hot day and probably miserable to play in that heat but the girls stayed strong and united and won the game. Tournament here we come!

Tess had a great game last night. While practice the day before made her highly upset for reasons only known to her, tonight was different. The whole team was pumped and ready to win. We were the Home team and were second to bat. Our defense held them to no runs in the first 2 innings and by the 3rd inning the score was 4 to 0. In the fourth inning we were finally able to get some hits that the opposing team couldn’t field so well and our lead quickly increased. We had a couple girls get Caught Stealing (including Tess) but she said the coach actually apologized to her and said it was his fault for sending her. (Tess is not a fast runner, doesn’t really know “how” to run – strange as that may seem – AND had a blister on her foot). Almost everyone got a hit tonight including the coach’s daughter who got her very first one of the entire season. The final score was 9 to 2.

We have our last regularly scheduled season game on Saturday. Hopefully everyone will be there as we play a team who is currently in second place. We have lost to them twice and won once so we definitely have to bring our A game. I can’t wait!

It was freezing cold tonight and we played another former coach Tess had and it was good to see him again. He is such a good coach that it is surprising that his team doesn’t give ours a run for our money. In the end we were ahead so our coach let players go to positions they normally didn’t play in. Unfortunately Tess was late getting out of the dugout and went back to outfield. (That just goes to show you that you should always be hustling, running in softball). Final score was 16 to 3.

A coach of Tess’ from last fall was our opponent today and boy has his team grown. In fact, we were losing but thankfully our league gives the Home team 15 minutes to “do whatever they can” to come back and win the game and that’s exactly what happened tonight. It was too close for comfort, we made some errors but we fought back and won 9 to 8.

Yikes! We were missing our second pitcher and our one and only catcher today and….it showed. One two three – the opposing team got us out but we answered back and held them to no runs. The game was close in the first and second inning. Our second pitcher tonight was strong and fast at pitching but added a hop when she threw the ball so her first strike thrown in the game became a ball because of an “illegal pitch.” That’s OK. She was doing the best she could considering she had only found out the night before she would be pitching. While we couldn’t hold them with our defense, we thought we could move ahead with our offense but they kept fielding the ball well and held us for a score of 2 to 12.

This game is behind us and after the loss it was time for….snacks, of course. I told the girls tonight that each and every one of their positions is important and it’s true. We’ve just got to figure out how to beat another team when we aren’t all here. Hopefully they’ll figure that out with the last few games of the season. I really believed we could win without two key players. Until next game girls.