Proud Mary Keep on Turning

So I missed both of my kids hits last night. One was a hit to first that he got out on, but he hit it. The second was a hard hit somewhere that he made it to first on, later to get out at 3rd on a fielders choice(which i spent 5 minutes later that night explaining why he went 1-2 with 1 out rather than 0-2 with 2 outs). Both times I was managing kids in the dugout from 3rd base coach perspective. And by managing I mean, yelling at them to stay in the dugout, sit down, and quit climbing fences and throwing rocks, etc. So it was a kind of blah night for the Rudd household.

However the Pirates(my Pirates, not from the Burgh) had a stellar night. Braeden continued a torrid stretch of flat out mashing the ball. Would have been a double but I was an idiot and put someone, hmmm.... politicially correctly speaking ... less than impressive on the base paths. So he got about a 200 ft single. My fault on that one dude, won't happen again. Then 2nd inning, my leadoff hitter for the game Patrick steps up. Average hitter, makes good contact. We call him the wall cause he can't catch a cold, but no ball gets by him in the infield. Definately not afraid of the ball. Couple misses and then jack! Right over the middle infield. Would have landed in the grass but the other team(breaking the rules mind you- outfield should be on the grass) had stationed a player on the dirt behind 2nd base. Kid almost caught it off his head, but it hit the ground. Just a single, but man was it pretty. I'm sure the look on mine and Mark's face was priceless.

Then Ella, the only girl in the league, steps up a few batters later. Keeping in mind she's only nicked one ball all year. She's about 1-6 or 1-7 on the year with 1 2 foot p-dub, although not sure its a p-dub when you are 7, and the rest are k's. I hate to ruin the suspense, but she didn't get a hit. She struck out, again. But her 4th strike was stellar. Bat on the ball, solid contact. Just too out in front, and pulled it foul. But we have contact boys and girls, we have contact.

Lastly, upon looking back, I think they only got like 2-3 balls to the grass on us, and those 2-3 were both gobbled up by my outfield and promptly brought in. 2 of the 3 innings we got 3 outs well before 5 runs. We've had our share of slaughters this year, like game 1. But this time we were the dominators. We scored 14 of a possible 15 runs in 3 innings.

All I can say is, we're coming around boys. We're coming around.