Baseball creeps in

The boys and I play catch on the driveway every few days. We're all getting back in practice. Of course I am much more of a beginner than they are. If we move much farther apart, the ball smacking my bare palm will hurt! I need a ball glove. And yet, it's fun. This coming week I'm going to start throwing grounders to the boys in the park. After I get a glove, we'll also keep moving farther apart so they get a good practice in while I improve.

Last week I got a bunch of baseball-related books from the library. Picture books: Home Run (on Babe Ruth, illustrated wonderfully by a local artist), Roasted Peanuts (friendship and baseball), and Baseball Saved Us (kids playing baseball in the context of Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps during World War II). Story books: Amelia Bedelia Plays Baseball, Sports Shorts, Abner and Me, Satch and Me, Babe and Me, Shoeless Joe and Me. The boys read all of them in the first two days except Sports Shorts and Home Run.

Gear needs: I hope their cleats and ball gloves from last year will do for the first couple of practices for each boy. I hadn't even thought about cleats until right before Son2's first practice, and he was wearing other shoes anyway. Son2 needs to move up from his T-ball glove to his first baseball glove. I'd really like to get a batting glove for Son1 just to show him a little love! And I remember that last year in the first month of games there were more than a few that were so cold I wished the boys had a long-sleeved warm layer they could wear under their jerseys; I'll look for that, too.

We've spoken with both boys' coaches and had the organizational meeting for one team, with the other coming up in a few days. Two days after the first meeting, we missed a team-related activity by forgetting about it. That happens every year in the first week or two, sigh. May we get our act together quickly!

Our Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of this month are filled with Scouts and one son's baseball practices, and we don't yet know what the other team's practice schedule will be. My pen is virtually poised over my calendar, but we just don't know yet.

Time to keep an eye on the local college and high school baseball schedules. I want to catch a game on an open afternoon or evening with good weather now, before the boys even start their season. And keep it up during the season.