Sean’s Team Loses Tough Scrimmage

June 5, 2008

Sorry to do another post about Sean’s baseball team, but quite frankly, it occupies a lot of our time right now. You will get a break from it with the Alma Dolores International Dance Studio Summer Recital coming up this Friday and Saturday. Sean will miss one baseball game because of that and that doesn’t exactly excite me.

Anyways, yesterday Sean’s team had a scrimmage against a regional travel team from Southeast Arizona. These kids have to try out for games, pay the coach and play all over the state. I say it was a scrimmage but it was essentially played like any normal game except for a few exceptions.

It was agreed to play 9 innings – our games usually end at 6 innings
Pitchers were limited to 3 innings
All players batted – not just those in the field

This was the most enjoyable game of the season to watch. The other kids were bigger than our and I think they could be 1 year older. It was obvious they were well coached and organized. I had said in a preview post about this game, I didn’t expect our team to fare to well.

Despite coming out on the short side of a 6-5 loss, I was wrong. It was a close game and our kids hung with them the entire way. In fact, we outplayed them and probably should have one if not for one sloppy inning in the field.

Through the first six innings, both sides chipped away at the plate and scored a run here and there. They were up on us 4 – 3. In the seventh, we got sloppy in the field and made several errors on quite easy plays. The errors allowed them to score 2 runs and take the lead 6 – 3.

They took that 6 – 3 lead into the bottom of the ninth when we started a rally. With one out, we had runners on 1st and 3rd base. Our batter hit a looper to right field. The right fielder charged the ball hoping to catch it but it bounced in front of him and got by him. The runners easily scored and the batter ran to the third as the ball was relayed back to the infield. The coach had a tough decision on whether to hold the runner at third or try to have him score. It would have been a very close play with a good throw.

With only one out, I think the coach did the right thing and held the batter at third. It turns out the throw home was a bit wild and he would have scored, but playing the percentages was the right call. Unfortunately, the new two kids struck out and we stranded the tying run on third base.

It’s amazing how enjoyable (and faster) a game can be when both sides throw strikes and swing the bat. In too many of our games, the other side can’t pitch well and doesn’t like to swing the bat. That makes for long games. We usually end up mercy ruling them.

Hats off to the kids for playing a very good game against a very tough team. While it officially was a scrimmage, I still count it as a loss which makes Sean’s teams’ recored 14 – 2 this season. This game will only help with the state tournament coming up at the end of the month.

Posted by Mr Papa | Filed Under Family, Games/Hobbies | Leave a Comment

Vacation Update

December 17, 2007

Vacation continues to go nicely. I really needed some time off. The last part of the year at work was rough. I still haven’t decided if I am going to go back to work on the 2nd of January or delay until the 7th. I had been thinking the 2nd, but the kids are trying to get me to make it the 7th since they have that whole week off from school.

On Saturday, Suzanne and the kids had their annual Christmas dance recital with the Alma Dolores International Dance Centre. This tends to be the biggest production of the year. Unfortunately, its also the performance with the most little kids. One can only take so many 4 and 5 year olds up on stage trying to dance. Don’t get me wrong, we were there with our kids too, so I fully understand the families and how they like it. I just wish they didn’t cut out a large portion of the older kids and adults from this recital.

All that said, this recital was the most crowded that I have seen yet. Almost the entire theater was jammed pack and some folks had to stand up for the show. When the first act ended, it cleared out somewhat because most of the little kids had to go home for bed. Sean and Savannah did very well in their dances and had a great time. Suzanne didn’t actually dance in this recital, but as the pom pom teacher and song and dance teacher at the dance studio, she had several numbers in the show. Her pom pom class continues to be popular and growing in size. In fact, its too big and there was too many kids on the stage at once. They still looked pretty good, but if you have 50 girls on stage, at their age, there is no way to keep them all in time. After the first of the year, she will be breaking the pom pom class into two classes to keep the size more manageable.

The kids have finally won us over and sometime this coming week we will likely be getting them cell phones. We have wanted to wait until they are old enough, but will all of our activities, there are times that we give them one of ours so we know where everyone is and what they are doing. It is just making sense to get them a phone. There will obviously be some strict rules on when they can and can’t use them. It will cost $10 a month apiece to add them to our current plan. For a normal month, they will pay us half the bill out of their chore earnings. If they are particularly bad in a month, they will foot the whole bill. If they should happen to have an outstanding month, we will pick up the whole month tab. Hopefully, this cost / sharing type of arrangement will help them be responsible. It doesn’t hurt that I want to get myself a new phone too – probably one of those LG Voyagers.

We had a nice sight in our yard today as the local herd of antelope when strolling by our house. The herd size is definitely up this year, which is good. Enjoy the prong horn antelope images below. They were taken from our back porch.