Life Cycles: My Proudest Moment

You'd think growing up in a house of only sisters, I would be a girly-girl. I think that the all-girl thing actually worked against my femininity, because there was no brother to take away my dad's attention. After 4 or 5 tries for a boy, he finally resigned himself to the idea that, if he wanted someone to play baseball with, he was going to have to settle for what he had.

My sister and I turned into sports nuts. I like just about every sport. I kicked trash this year at fantasy football. I know all of the teams in the NFL and I could probably tell you who their starting quarterback was last season. In our Relief Society directory, I am the only one who put Monday Night Football as my favorite t.v. show.

I also like pro cycling, golf, and basketball. However, what I really love is baseball.

My dad was a fantastic softball player. He played on work, city and church leagues. We went to every game. Summer meant ballgames.

My dad taught me to hit a ball. Hard. He taught me how to catch in the pocket of my mitt. And, most importantly, he taught me how to NOT throw like a girl.

Now I have kids of my own and I have waited patiently for them to be old enough to play baseball. When Em was 5, we signed her up for tee-ball. I was so excited! What a let down. Tee-ball is NOT baseball. There are no outs. There is no pitcher. There are a lot of little kids who don't know which way to run.

Next, we found a competitive machine pitch baseball league for Mike when he was 7. Full uniforms and outs and everything.

Just like that, I became a baseball mom.

Here's the problem, though. I think that I like baseball better than my boys do.

They like it all right, but they also like to shoot baskets in their new basketball standard and they like to play Wii. I'm not sure that baseball even ranks top 3. They won't sit and watch Red Sox games with me (even though I redid their whole bathroom in RedSox decor). They don't want to spend hours in the yard practicing.

What the heck? It's probably good-- because if they loved it, I'd move heaven and earth to get them on super-league teams and into camps and stuff. Such is life.

However, last night, we had a moment that made up for my little disappointments.

Mike was playing in his second Little League game. He is on the Indians and his team ROCKS. He is the youngest and the 2nd smallest, so he's having a little adjustment from being THE MAN on his Rookie team last year. Instead of playing 1st base, he warms the bench or plays outfield. He does, however, get to bat.

This is his first year on a pitching league, instead of machine pitch. It scares me a little to see my little guy up there against these 11-12 year old pitchers. I played in hundreds of games growing up and I don't think I was ever as nervous for myself as I am for my son. I was literally praying for him to just do his best and oh, could you maybe just let him hit the ball? 1st time at bat and he gets up there and smacks a wicked curve ball out past second base for a single. Woohoo!

His team was up 12 to 2 when he got up again. (I told you they rock.) He stood up there, took one strike, then on the second pitch, he got smacked in the head so hard that his helmet flew off. I thought my heart stopped. He calmly picked up his helmet, tossed his bat toward the dugout, then trotted to first base. His coach asked him if he was all right. I could see that he wanted to cry, but he is trying desperately to fit into this team of big kids who have all played together for 3-4 years now. He manned-up and stood his ground.

The pitcher threw a wild pitch to the next batter and Mike stole second. They tried to pick him off, but the second baseman missed the throw. Mike stole third. They tried to pick him off there, but over-threw a little and the coach sent him in. He ran faster than I've ever seen him run, slid his little butt into home and was SAFE!

It took everything in me not to run over and smother him with motherly concern and affection, but I didn't want to undo all of his hard work. I glued my butt to the seat.

I don't think I've ever been more proud of him, and it had very little to do with baseball skills. My son took one for the team, showed courage while in pain, then got the job done when he needed to.