Last night I tried reeeeally hard to go to yoga class, just to get there and find that class was canceled this week because my yoga teacher is on vacation. OK fine. Luckily there was a back-up plan readily available right in the same town (because no, I don't go to a yoga class in the town in which I live. My class is, in fact, in a whole other state. That's partly because I really love this particular yoga teacher, and partly because I like to be absurd). So I ended up joining some friends at the local elementary school to watch their son's Little League game.
This wasn't just any Little League game. (In fact, I guess technically it wasn't Little League at all. It's Peewee League or whatever comes before Little League. I don't know such things; I played soccer.) This was the SEMIFINALS. Bernardston vs. Northfield. Northfield was the home team, and they were mostly big tough 4th graders. My friends were with Bernardston, which has a mix of 3rd and 4th graders, with a lot of kids who haven't hit their mid-elementary-school growth spurt yet.
This made for an uphill battle for our side, and there was competetive spirit like you've never seen. Bases were stolen. Bats were tossed. Tears were shed. Four-leaf clovers were searched for in the outfield during slow moments. This was serious baseball.
The evening was warm and humid, and we watched a storm waiting just over the mountains to the west with enough trepidation that people jumped a little every time a camera flashed. Bernardston started off strong, but then watched Northfield slowly creep back. Our best pitcher crumpled to the ground in the 3rd inning after getting smacked hard in the wrist as he tried to tag home. Northfield brought in a skinny little blond bomber of a pitcher who seemed to knock our kids down 1-2-3.
But our side kept at it, and after six innings (in only 3 hours!), with the rain seeming to close in, our pitcher (whose wrist seemed magically healed, which was good because the kid can throw some serious heat, though granted his heat often went nowhere near the plate) got strike 3: the last out. Bernardston was going to the championship, and everyone headed to the local creamery to eat ice cream for dinner.
And if that's not a perfect summer evening, I don't know what is.
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2 comments:
Great story, but sports fans want to know: What was the score?
I don't know; 15-7 or something? We won, that's all I know. All through the game we had to ask people around us what the score was. If only Peewee League had Jumbotrons.
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