15/52 - Anders in T-Ball

With the arrival of spring, Anders has been introduced to the next season's sport: baseball. The Trout Lake T-Ball team is 7 kids, all of whom will be his classmates when he starts at the Trout Lake School in September. At the first practice, it was clear that Anders didn't really know much about baseball. But he was in good company with many of his teammates. For three weeks they practiced a couple hours per week learning the basics of throwing, catching, fielding and hitting. Anders enjoyed running the bases.

Before the team had even put all of the pieces together, it was time for Opening Day! The first pitch of the Mt Adams Little League was thrown by a local celebrity of sorts: Vic Wild, two-time Olympic gold medal snowboarder, who grew up in White Salmon, WA!

I didn't know the rules for T-ball until the first game, even though I was one of the volunteer coaches. Here they are in a nutshell. Every person bats once per inning, and there are 3 or 4 innings, whichever seems closer to about an hour of play (variable based on team sizes and pace of play.) Each team bats once through the order, hitting the ball off of a tee. The batter and each runner advance by one base each time. When the last batter is up, he automatically gets a grand slam, clears the bases, and the teams switch. Fielding involves getting to the ball, picking it up, and throwing it to first base. There are no outs. No one plays in the outfield (for obvious reasons).

The team.

Our team had a lot of parent participation, with around four regular parent/coaches including the official coach (whose son is also on the team.) Once the kids had the basics, the majority of the coaching was making sure that they were paying attention and in their "ready position" when in the field. It often looked like this:

Yes, this is during a game.

It's been fun watching the kids grow and learn new skills. Give them a uniform, batting helmet, and glove and it almost looks like they know what they are doing. The team sponsor was a local engineering firm - Tenneson Engineering - so the uniforms even said Engineering!

A local professional photographer took team and individual photos; I'm assuming they were for the Topps trading cards yet to be issued. For the individual shot, the photographer took just one shot of each child. ONE PHOTO. And somehow, magically, Anders was both looking at the camera AND had a nice smile. Amazing.

For the group photo, we got some comments from the photographer on the ratio of coaches to players (one player was absent), but I say the more the merrier.

That's not a backdrop; it's real. Best T-Ball field in the country.

With only 9 games in the season, this year's T-ball will be over before we know it. But I have a strong suspicion that Anders will be back next year.

---

We'll leave you with this Anders quote of the week and a photo from last summer:

Anders: Mom, did you know that sometimes you have to be uncomfortable?
Corinne: You do? Why?
Anders: To look fancy.

Fancy. (And uncomfortable.)

- Mike, Corinne and Anders