Baseball

This is Jake's first year to play baseball. He played soccer last year. He liked it, but didn't love it and Rob & I were not crazy about the YMCA soccer league. So this year we tried baseball through the Pelham City League. Much better! Robbie grew up playing baseball, so it's been a lot more fun for him helping Jake as well. Jake is on the 5 & 6 year old team. Which makes him one of the youngest and one of the only ones that is not in school yet. Most of the other kids played the previous year, so we knew that this year would be a learning curve for Jake. We just wanted him to learn the fundamentals, try his hardest and have a good time.

Practice: The team spent the month of March practicing 3 days week. Practice was rough. Jake loved it and had a great time, but it was painful for Rob & I to watch. Jake had so much to learn! Batting especially. The city league is machine pitch (not t-ball or coach pitch), so we were not prepared for that. I'm not kidding. Out of 30 pitches, Jake would strike out 30 times. There was so much to remember! And his timing was completely off. During a game, he would only get 3 strikes, so my goal for the season was that he just make contact with the ball at least once. I didn't care if it was foul or he got out. I just wanted him to make contact with the bat & ball once. I give Jake & Rob credit. They practiced so much!

First Game: The first game was Thursday night. Jake's first up to bat, he made contact with the ball! It unfortunately didn't make it out of the batter's box, so it didn't count, but he made contact!  His second up to bat, he actually made contact and got the ball out of the batter's box. We've been working so hard on batting, we didn't cover what to do if he actually got on base! Jake ran to second, but then kept running past the base. Then he just stood there, so they tagged him out. His third time up to bat, he struck out. But we were so proud of him! 

Second Game: The second game was Saturday morning. First up to bat, he stuck out. Second up to bat, he hit the ball, ran to first base & actually stopped. YEAH! Of course, then I worried because we had not covered too much on what to do past first base. The next batter hit the ball and Jake made it to second base. Then the next batter hit the ball & Jake made it to third. There was an in-field error (which is basically the only way anyone ever scores!) and they had Jake keeping running on home. He scored a run!! It was everything I could do not to run onto the field & hug him! I was so proud of him. He has come such a long way from practice. 

Jake's Thoughts: So far, Jake loves baseball. It doesn't bother him that he is not the best player on the team. Sometimes he does have to be reminded that it's not social hour, but he seems to like learning how to play baseball. And it's something fun that he & Robbie can do together. (Robbie ended up becoming one of the assistant coaches for the team. He runs the pitching machine when our team is up to bat.) Even if he strikes out, Jake skips off giving everyone high fives. 

My little baseball player

Jake & Daddy

Very first time up to bat

Playing out in left field

He made it to first base!

Second base!

I was too excited to get a picture of him at third base or scoring. So very proud of him! And this was his team's first win! Go Pelham Pirates!!

Jake was so sweet. That night, when saying his prayers, he thanked God that his Daddy helped him learn baseball. Such a sweet little prayer!

(And just keeping it real, don't think Jake is always so sweet. Before I could post this sweet prayer of his, he got mad at me for telling him no for something. He was crying & throwing a fit and told me that was the ugliest thing I could say and I was an ugly mean friend. And God was not happy with me. Life with a 5 year old! They love you to death one minute and are yelling at you the next.)