Thursday, July 28, 2005

Baseball Nights

JR will watch baseball anywhere. He gets as excited at his cousin's tee-ball games as he does watching the Phillies. Our car should sport a bumper sticker saying "I brake for baseball games." We've been known to pull over to the side of the road to watch random Little League games.

One of JR's favorite evening pasttimes is to go to the local recreation center to watch the men's softball league games. Now, we don't know anyone playing. This is serious softball - every team sponsored by a bar (the field seems to be the home field for "Tattoo Moms") The guys are scruffy, the balls are thrown fast and the hits are long and into the outfield. There are no spectators besides a few dedicated girlfriends who show up late in their bar clothes, and sit on the bleachers chatting on their cell phones. JR loves it. He sits on the concrete wall that surrounds the field, about even from first base, and he watches the pitchers and the batters. From his vantage point, he can also scrutinize the pick-up basketball games on the adjoining court.

If he's really lucky, the ice cream truck will pass by and dad will spring for a treat, most of which will inevitably end up melted on the asphalt. The part that has managed to get into JR's belly will quickly metastasize into a sugar energy burst, so that JR will decide it's now time to get into the game himself. At that point, we call it quits and head home to retrieve our t-ball stand and baseball bats, gloves and balls so we can reprise the big boys in the corner bocce court, a perfect stand-in for a baseball stadium, in JR's eyes.

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