Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Ever since he could weeble-wobble, our nephew Cooper has had some kind of ball in his hand. Our brother-in-law Blaine has been working on Cooper's throwing motion and batting stance for years. Believe it or not, our polite little nephew, has grown into a 4th grader (soon to be 5th grader) and the time to begin enjoying his baseball talent has come.

Cooper's club team is the West Des Moines Bengals. Blaine is one of three coaches on the team. With a weekend tournament in Cedar Rapids, Kelli and I thought we'd cross something off Charly's Summer-To-Do-List (to be posted soon) and make the hour long drive up Highway 20 to cheer Coop on.

We showed up fashionably late, halfway through the second inning of Game #1. Charly's oldest cousin was pitching for the Bengals and had already fanned 6 batters in 2 innings. Because these little boys' arms need to be protected, the boys can only pitch 3 innings a game, and no more than 6 in a week or weekend. In his final inning of pitching for the day, Coop struck out 2 more, for a total of 8 batters in 3 innings. The Bengals were up 7-1.

Brooks is the bat-boy for his older brother's team and sadly we come to find out that winning is not something the Bengals do very often! We immediately thought their inspired play had something to do with the presence of their starting pitcher's youngest, and only girl cousin. The Bengals went on to win convincingly in only 4 innings with Brooks chanting "Mercy rule! Mercy rule!" from the dugout!

Their second game of the day began at 4:00 and after the Bengals batted in 12 runs in the first inning of play, even Blaine thought there might be something to the team's newfound good luck charm . . .

The Bengals went on to win 17-3 in only 4 innings once again, their second win of the day. While the boys celebrated, the coaches cried "Act like you've been here!" The boys couldn't help it. Two wins in a day. A hotel stay and pool party to come. Two more games the following day. They felt like little major leaguers and who could blame them? Even I was secretly wishing I could be 10 again, just for the day! It was a blast to watch and it was easy to be excited for them. Watching Cooper and Brooks smother Charly with sweaty kisses in-between innings and games, we couldn't help but think maybe we did bring the boys a little bit of luck!

Watching and enjoying baseball is one of my favorite pastimes. I spend the months of October through March each year, eagerly anticipating Opening Day. Poor Charly doesn't have much choice in the matter; it will be a sport she will love as well. She has already begun learning the Minnesota Twins' starting lineup and positions, she watches Baseball Tonight with me and loves "Web Gems", and now she's officially taken in her first live, doubleheader.

Target Field, here we come!