Sunday, February 22, 2009

Baseball Rules

  • Never step on the chalk lines when entering or exiting the field of play.
  • If a pitcher steps on the lines, he can fully expect that the baseball gods will hold a bunted ball spinning in the chalk line as the catcher or third baseman helplessly waits for it to roll foul, and the despised batter takes first.
  • A new bat has to have time in the batting cage before use in a game. It won't know what to do in a game if it hasn't had cuts in the cage.
I do love my life. I took a personal day Friday, and Mr. Epic and I vacationed in the south of Dallas. The youngest son was in the area playing baseball-a double-header on Friday and another on Saturday. We watched 14 hours of baseball in two days, and greatly enjoyed 7 of them. Friday was beautiful, and young Epic pitched well in his two innings.

Saturday-not as much fun. As Mr. E said, "I don't mind being cold when I watch baseball, and I don't mind getting sunburned. But it's just WRONG to have both happen at the same time!"

Young E's team lost 3 of the 4 games-each by 1 run. Bummer. But-over the years I've come to enjoy the individual excellence of players on the field. One of the guys went 7 for 7 on Friday, and one was a homerun short of the cycle.

The mothers of pitchers live in our own special hell when our sons are on the mound. In Young E's first inning, the first I've seen him pitch this year, the first batter got on by a short stop error, the next guy flied out. He walked the next batter, and then the behemoth first baseman came to the plate. He hit a ball that may still be going. At that point I had to DO something. As a baseball mom, I know that when things aren't going well, a change must be made. It's the rule of the Baseball Gods. The only thing I could do was move, so I headed for the bathroom, but stopped on the way to watch him strike out the next guy. In order to avoid irritating the gods, I had to continue to the bathroom. He got the final out of the inning on a pop fly.

His next inning he didn't give up a run, and I got to stay in my chair. There was an amazing play that inning. The right fielder caught a fly ball and then threw out the runner who had tagged at third and tried to go home. It was a laser beam of a throw, and the catcher caught the ball and tagged the runner in the same motion. It was a beautiful thing to watch, and I'm glad the baseball gods did not require me to be in the bathroom when it happened.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Odyssey

We start reading tomorrow. Woo-whoo! We talked about Greek mythology today, and I told many of the stories. I told the Trojan War in an hour (with the back stories). Three times. My throat hurts. But it's SO worth it. The kids (even the "cool" kids) got wide-eyed several times.

One guy asked how long I had to study "that stuff" to know it so well. I honestly didn't have an answer. It's always been a part of my life. My grandparents told me many of the stories, and once I learned to read, I read a great deal of Greek mythology on my own. In fact, I got some of my Greek mythology mixed up with my Bible stories. I recall arguing with a Sunday school teacher that God did too chain some guy to a mountain and have an eagle eat out his liver everyday...

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