May 7 – “Battle for first place”

We had a visit yesterday from Mr. Ken, the Nutrition Man.  He's here for the funeral of a friend of his.  Mr. Ken used to live here in Galveston and went to Seaside for years.  He now lives in Austin and works as a pizza delivery man and in selling nutrition products.  He looks great.  He's lost around forty pounds and says he feel healthier than he has in years.   Mr. Ken is very impressed with Cailyn.  Especially with her ability to climb.  He jumped a few times when she crawled onto one of our barstools.  He just shook his head when he watched her climb the cabinets over at her house after we took her home.  And at the ball game he was a hero when he caught her as she fell in the bleachers right in front of him.  His recommendation?  Keep her away from rollerblades until she's at least 30.  Mr. Ken remembers her Daddy well.   Jachin's baseball game last night was truly a Galveston Little League spectacle.  Two groups of seven to nine year olds were playing for the right to inhabit first place in the league.  The stands were packed with rowdy parents and relatives.  The coaches had done all the preparation they could do.  The toughest umpire in the association had been hired to oversee the game.  The pitching machine was primed and ready to go.  This game was at the "machine pitch" level, I guess because the machine can allegedly deliver the exact same pitch time after time.  Way more advanced than when I was a scrawny little nine year old trying out for the first time because I was too scared when I was eight.  Back then eight was the youngest age.  Now it's four.  And they play t-ball.  Another modern invention.  Maybe that would have helped me learn to hit.  After machine pitch they graduate to "coach pitch."  Here the pitching is live, but is done by the team's own coach, somebody they know and trust.  Boy, I'm glad I never had to go through that level.  I sure didn't trust my first coach.  I was scared to death of him.  He would hit crushing ground balls to us at speeds that would cause a major leaguer to flinch.  And then when we missed them he would make us run a lap around the entire field.  Which, by the way encompassed three or four fully functioning practice fields.  It wasn't actually a sports complex in the present day sense, though.  There were just four hastily constructed twelve foot chain link backstops at each corner of a huge empty area of ground.  Most of the time it was kept mowed, and there weren't really all that many holes to step in.  They worked for us.  Anyway, I think the kids today finally reach real Little League at ages eleven and twelve.  I had to face twelve year old pitching when I was ten.  Not all that great for a youngster's self-esteem.  It made be a pretty good shortstop, though.  I greatly preferred playing defense to standing in a little box with a wooden stick and hoping I didn't get hit with a hard ball thrown at my head by a kid twice my size.  And now their wooden sticks are made of metal so the ball will go farther and faster.   Jachin's team lost the game, by the way.  They played their hearts out, though.  I was proud of Jachin.  In his first at bat he got an RBI on a ground out that tied up the game.  He put down a beautiful drag bunt his second time up, but was thrown out at first.  The thing that most disappointed me was the sportsmanship of the parents.  I have no problem with cheering and encouraging your kid loudly to do his best.  I was even OK with honking the car horn after an especially exciting play.  The cries of "easy out" that I remembered saying myself as a player sounded kind of out of place coming from some other guy's mom.  And it struck me as kind of cheap to blow an air horn just as the batter was about to take his swing.  But at least no one tried to climb the fence to beat up the umpire for a bad call.  That image was forever seared on my mind from back when I was playing.    Oh.  After the game the kids were still excited.  It was after all … sno-cone time.  Some things never change.   James 1:16-17 says, "Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."   Father, thank you for your unchanging nature.  It's nice to have something, someone, we can count on.  Amen.