Victory tastes good

Last Friday was the last regular season game for AB and Hubster. It was actually a make-up game from Monday. We've had lots of storms lately and it happened to storm on a day that baseball was to happen.

Well, we only had 8 players, and we played with only 8, but we did have to take an out on every ninth batter. The other team had a full crew.

The other team also had been un-defeated. Until the night before. They apparently lost and were not happy about it. This is a team that is all about winning. Or maybe it's only the coach and the parents that feel that way.

The game started good, we weren't expecting much out of this since we only had 8 players. During the first inning, the other team scored 4. We scored none.

The second inning started and our team kept them from scoring. We ended up with 2 runs. We were halfway there.

Our team though, is like the Bad News Bears. We have kids in the outfield that twirl around and then see the ball roll past them and they just stop and stare at it. (sad to say that that was AB). Or our kids try to get the ball, but it ends up going under their legs. Or they all scramble for the same ball. Sometimes, they think their next door neighbor is going to get it and no one actually goes for it. It's even happened that their are runners on 1st & 2nd and when the third baseman gets the ball, he throws it way past first and the guy on 2nd ends up coming home. Yup, that's our team.

So when this only lost once team was playing us on Friday, I'm sure they were tasting the win. But what happened in the fourth inning stunned everyone.

During the third inning, they ended up scoring 5 runs. They disputed everything we did. They argued over the fact that the umpire called one of their runners out because him and another runner were both on the third base bag at the same time. The coach would even sit there and yell at his players to "get rid of him" when our players were on the bases.

The parents were all disgruntled over calls that were legitimate. The scorekeeper even came over to our side to yell at the umps that our 8th batter had just gotten out and therefore our ninth non-existent batter was out as well. Like I can't yell myself.

During the 4th inning, the parents and the coach were sure of the win. They had 9, we had 5 at this time. We were joking and said that if we scored all 5 runs, only 5 runs are allowed an inning, that we could possibly win. Since we had only won 3 other times during the season, we didn't even believe it was possible. And definitely not with only 8 players.

Well, it was our time to bat and we had only 1 out with bases loaded. The scorekeeper came up to me and asked me what the score was for them. 9 I said and we have 5. We had another batter hit and a runner came in and we still only had 1 out. The scorekeeper approaches me again and asks what their score is. I want to be sarcastic and say, "it hasn't changed, you still have 9", but I bite my tongue and say "y'all have 9 and now we have 6.

Our next batter hits it hard to right field. We end up getting all runners in, including the last batter. Everyone was on their feet, jumping and cheering our team. The other team's parents were on their feet and yelling as well, but not for us. They were mad because the umpire hadn't called our runner out at home. You see, the catcher had dropped the ball and was standing in the middle of home plate, with no ball.

The coach was mad. The parents were yelling. The bottom line was that they had lost to the Bad News Bear. This made them mad, since they had already lost the night before.

The scorekeeper approached me yet again and asked what the final score I had was. "We have 10 and y'all STILL have 9" I want to say. But I don't, I say "10 to 9".

We won fair and square. The victory would not have felt good if it wasn't that way. But our kids were extremely excited because they beat a team that was un-beatable, and with only 8 players. What victory.

At the end of the game, our kids shook the other teams hands, and regardless of how rude their coach or parents were, the kids were not that way. As a matter of fact, there were a couple of them at the exit when we were leaving and the kids looked at our kids and said "good game".