In Our Baseball Era

Baseball has officially taken over our family.  Lately it seems to infiltrate everything we do.  That's not a bad thing, it's just sort of unexpected.  If you'd have told me three months ago that this would be our life now, I'd have definitely looked at you a little funny.  But here we are.

Years ago, baseball was a pretty big thing for us.  We'd go to games as much as we could.  We would specifically travel to them, especially with Craig's family.  We would go to games wherever we happened to go on vacation.  We'd go to Red Wings games locally (taking advantage of Amerks' office season tickets), or we'd visit some of the smaller single A stadiums nearby, just for something to do on a summer evening.  We went to games almost everywhere, and it didn't matter if it was major league or minor league--we loved both in different ways.  It was just what we did in the summer, to the point that our basement bathroom features pictures from every stadium we've been to.  It was Craig's Father's Day gift years ago that I've continued to add to, and I love the memories I see every time I use that bathroom.

Last weekend I was looking through old pictures trying to find something, and I found pictures of our trip to Pittsburgh when Jacob was two, the infamous trip where he got a super cute catcher's chest protector backpack (and wore it on his front) and tried to run to the pitcher's mound during the postgame kids run the bases.  Scrolling through that folder, I realized how much baseball we did that summer.  We went to a ton of games.  It was definitely a favorite activity for us back then.

Jacob himself played little league for four years, starting when he was five until he decided to go do travel lacrosse instead, after which he did one season of fall ball.  We had one coach that whole time (aside from fall ball), and had a lot of fun with a core group of families...until we hit the kid-pitch stage and games were eternally long and boring.  Kids can't pitch well at 8 (or apparently 9 and 10, either), so there were a lot of walks and games would stretch from 6pm to near darkness, even at the peak of summer.  We weren't too sad when he quit as a result, but it was definitely the end of an era.

We spent a lot of time after that focused on lacrosse.  It's not that we didn't like baseball, but lacrosse tended to take precedence.  We did games from time to time, like minor league games in Hartford and Maryland on lacrosse trips, or the Blue Jays game in Buffalo during COVID.  But as a whole, we took a bit of a baseball break in recent years.  COVID didn't do us any favors, of course, but for the past handful of years, both kids seemed to find baseball a little boring.  We went to a Red Wings game or two and the kids were mostly wanting to go to the speed pitch and then were ready to leave early, so we didn't push it much. 

But then last summer we went to the Pirates game and I swear a switch flipped.  All of a sudden Jacob was super into the Pirates.  He was playing MLB The Show on Xbox all the time.  And most importantly, both boys were wanting to go out and play in the yard.  Carter got just good enough that he played the sandlot session for the town Little League last August, and Jacob began asking us why we let him quit baseball all those years earlier.  He was really good when he was a kid.  He could switch hit and got on base for all but maybe a handful of at-bats in his career.  He'd been hitting balls off a tee since he was about two, so I guess it made sense.  But last summer he realized he probably could have been a pretty good player long term.  And more recently he realized that baseball would probably take a lot less of a toll on his body, so maybe that's not a bad backup plan if basketball doesn't work out due to his ongoing run of injuries. 

As a side note, he went to the doctor Monday and Tuesday and it appears the most recent pain in his shin may just be soft tissue irritation around his plate.  They don't think the plate is loose or rubbing, but that it's just causing some general irritation.  So we're going to have him work with his trainer who will supposedly be able to do some work on it.  We'll start there and see if it helps, with the hope of avoiding having it removed.  It felt better after a couple days away from school (where he says carrying his backpack irritates it), so we'll see.  I guess he was feeling good enough to do a late sign-up for his own round of Little League baseball.  This is really his last year to do it, so I guess we're giving it a shot.  He could play for school next year but they don't have a team so he'd have to see where the school could link up with.  Of course, the school's athletic director just got arrested for a hit-and-run murder (!) that happened last summer so we may have to see where that lands and who could help with that when the time comes.  Never a dull moment.  There have also been talks about whether a longer-term basketball break, if needed due to surgery, would provide the opportunity to change schools (yes, again, I know).  Nothing's even vaguely in the planning stage, but it's opened up some conversations, for sure.  But baseball is definitely solidly on Jacob's radar, and is maybe even more of a focus when it comes to college since it feels more doable.  But as I said the other day in regard to both kids, can we please just get one season in before we start talking about other stuff?

Jacob probably talks about going to baseball games (particularly Pittsburgh) as much as he talks about going back to Disney.  We are planning on doing a baseball weekend in Pittsburgh for his birthday, mostly because there's a bobblehead giveaway of his favorite player, but there's always talk of more.  Craig and I would like to go back to Atlanta.  We'd talked about going back to Indiana this summer, and that would likely involve at least a stop in Cincinnati and maybe Cleveland.  We'll see where we actually land, but it's sort of fun to have that back on the radar when we travel.

Most of our day-to-day entertainment revolves around baseball too.  Sometimes it's watching a game, more often it's watching YouTube videos about everything from video game baseball to real baseball highlights to historical documentaries.  All three boys play MLB The Show on Xbox.  And when they're not doing that stuff, they are outside throwing the ball around or hitting into a new net we got to spare everyone's houses and windows and prevent lost balls in the foliage.  It's the first time Carter's been excited to practice a sport, but I have a distinct feeling it has more to do with Jacob's eager participation than anything else.

Yes, the boys have bonded over baseball.  That's not to say they don't still have their fair share of differences, but they are actually decent to one another a reasonable portion of the time now.  They are OK watching the same things and can play nicely together for longer than they ever used to.  It boggles my mind it took us 11 years to get to this point, but I'm grateful for whatever bonding they are doing now because it's proof that they can do it.  For a long time I wasn't sure it was possible.  They're still polar opposite humans and Jacob still has a lot of critiques on Carter's skill and personality, but it's progress.

But it just boggles my mind how baseball has infiltrated everything we do these days.  Between the two boys it will likely mean we're at the field almost every night of the week for the next couple months.  That will throw all of my dinner plans into chaos and make me hate even more the already-obnoxious weather patterns we have this time of year.  Carter was supposed to have his first game Monday and his second Wednesday, but despite both nights being pleasant and sunny, he played neither night because there had been rain either overnight or in the afternoon that drenched the fields.  It doesn't look like the rain is going to let up, either, for any reasonable period of time.  It's so frustrating.  I know the early season is like this, but it's been exceptionally annoying so far.  And now we have it times two.  There's a reason I like basketball, folks.  Not weather-dependent, climate-controlled, and a timed duration that's usually pretty reliable.  We have none of the above here.  It's fine, I like baseball, but this will challenge me a bit more than basketball or soccer have, or even t-ball did back in the day.  But I'm excited for the kids so hopefully that will win out.

Carter did manage to get in game #1 on Saturday.  He and his team did really well.  He got hits on his first two at-bats, and got walked other times.  He had an RBI and some stolen bases and overall played well.  He even got one of two game balls from the coach!  They won 11-1, which was pretty impressive itself considering the iffy play I saw at practice last week.

Here's his first hit:

Jacob got in his first practice as well, although the rain hit in the midst of it.  I guess he did really well, too, so we're excited to see him play games in a couple weeks.  

And, finally, as one last piece of evidence for baseball's domination, the boys gave me a "baseball mom" shirt for Mother's Day.  Case closed--we are definitely in our baseball era.