9 to ?(5)

Warning this story promises to deliver violence, language, gore, and tears.

Hey can you hear me? I have no voice. I'm sure it is not because I was yelling so loud last night in 40 degree weather at 10:30 at night or anything. I am sick. Yeah that is it. So listen closely as I recount the horrible night for you. If you come a little closer you might be able to hear better.

That's it. Just a little closer.


Ok. So. It was HORRIBLE. Did I already say that? With two teams eliminated and our team in second place, we were set to play the (cough) number one team. (I say that lightly.) These are the dreaded D-Backs; the team that barely beat us twice, tied us once and lost to us once (a much needed victory for us. Especially since that was the game where the catcher chased Brandon back to third base and AFTER Brandon was safe on the base, tackled him off and slammed him to the ground. Keep that in mind as I finish my story.) The kids have all been terrified of this team as they have a pretty fast pitcher that is hard to hit off. Their coaches are really nit picky about everything and always trying to challenge the umpire.

So, back to the horrible story at hand. The teams flipped a coin and we got last bats. Yeah! We started off and our boys were playing so awesome but we had one thing against us. It wasn't the other team, but the umpire. He was calling all kinds of bad calls. You know it is bad when BOTH teams are shaking their heads at almost every call he makes. After a handful of calls that were clearly wrong, (that cost us points) our coaches (who were handling it great up until this point) snapped as one of our players slid across home plate as the ball came flying in. The catcher fumbled the ball and dropped it. While it is still lying on the ground the umpire calls him out. Our main coach becomes understandably irate and goes over to challenge the umpire. The catcher reaches down, picks up the ball while they are arguing over whether he touched the base or not (how can you miss it when your whole body slides over it?) and touches the player(who thinks that he touched the base and was trying to validate that he did so). The umpire sees what he is looking for and calls out again! The crowed erupted in fury at the clear mistake and by this time our coach was in the umpire's face. He gets kicked out of the game, but before he could leave the field, the parents of Mean Catcher Boy told our coach that he was the worst coach they ever saw and that he didn't belong on the field. A yelling match ensued as mother of Poor Tackled Boy jumps up and tells Catcher Boy's mom to SHUT. UP! Mean Lady's attention turned to Hero Mom as she wants to know who just told her to shut up. That is when Hero-sister-in-law jumps in and tells Mean Lady that it was her and she needed to come over and take what was coming to her. Mother of Poor Tackled Boy was glad she did not feel the need to do so, even though her adrenalin was through the roof and she really wanted to put that mean mom (who's son is understandably mean too) in her place. Hero Mom was taken back to the night that she finally let loose on Tonya Taylor after years of being bullied by her. (That felt SOOO good.) After the game I found out that I was not the only Hero Mom there. There were others who had told her to shut up too. (She had been kind of mouthy all season and I think everyone was tired of her. But when she attacked our coach for no other reason than to raise the level of tension for our boys, then most of us couldn't take it anymore.) Thinking back now, Hero Mom feels a little bad that she lost control in front of her kids by slinking almost to the level of Really Mean Mom.

Things got really bad from there. Another of our coaches almost got kicked out and even though we still played so awesome, our moral was stomped out and we lost by 4 points. All the bad calls calculated would have put us ahead, but to no avail. My blood pressure has risen back up just by reliving it.

We were supposed to play today but we got rained out. On Monday we will play the third place team and after we eliminate them with no problemo, we will have to beat the D-Backs twice to take first place. Anyone want to come? Abby? (I did try your gum trick. I think it fell out while I was yelling. Any other ideas?)

Here are some highlights of the game:
1. Brandon gets up and faces the dreaded fast pitcher only to be pegged in the thigh and walked to first base. With his hitting record, that was his only chance of getting on base at this point. He could shake off the pain, but not the humiliation of not being able to hold back the tears that came with it.
2. Brandon gets up and faces a new pitcher. This one is not so scary, but what I didn't know at this point is that Brandon's only desire was to hit that ball out of the park. He wanted to be vindicated for being hit and for the injustices that were happening to his team. He hits the ball infield and gets out on first. The tears were flowing harder (as were many of our players at this point) as he walked back to the dugout.
3. Brandon plays third base (not something he got to do very often, but he loves it when he gets to). He stopped a grounder that came to him. It bounced up and hit him at the waist and so he did not have time to get it to first base. But he stopped it gosh darn it!
4. He gets up to bat for the last time in this game, to the same pitcher, with the same desire to hit it out of the park. He hits it on his first try (and as mentioned before his record of hitting the ball and getting on base was not so good) and it goes toward the second baseman, through him and into the outfield. He makes it to first base and is able to advance to second on an overthrow, a feat that has not been done before by him. He was on fire!