Play Ball!

Last night was Brennan's first game of the baseball season. They changed the age breakdown of the divisions over the summer, so this year is now his first year of machine pitch. Once again, he is on the Tigers, with the same coach. Aside from Brennan and the coach's son, three other players from his team last year are on the team this year. Among the new comers is one of the best players in the league. As one of the other coaches said last night, "I think he's a better shortstop than I was in college."

At the beginning of practices, Brennan was doing well (though he missed a week's worth of practice with being sick). Then, a couple of weeks ago, he started being very nervous about the ball when batting. Last week was a practice game, and he was so obviously uncomfortable trying to hit that it was sad to watch. The next morning he told Dee that he thought he probably wouldn't get a hit all season. The next day at practice myself and the head coach and the other assistant coach kind of ganged up on him. He was in tears for awhile, but with a lot of support and encouragement, by the end of the practice he was a lot more comfortable and confident. In particular, he was gaining a lot of confidence in his bunting.

Anyway, last night they played the White Sox, a team that includes two more of the players from Brennan's team last year. We were missing one of our best players through sickness, so that was a disadvantage. Brennan played most of the game at right field. He is very good there about backing up on throws to first. He did play one inning at second, and ended up getting a ball that made it past two other players, though by that time there was no way to get the out.

His first time up to bat he bunted foul, and then struck out. The beginning of the game was a little rough for both teams, and after the third inning I believe the score was 4 - 1 for the White Sox. In the fourth things really started to get interesting. With one out, we got a runner on first. He stole second, and ended up scoring on a wild throw to second. I don't remember all the details after that, but Brennan came up with two outs and at least one runner on. He put down a very nice bunt and made it to first. In fact, he ended up at third, and that put us up 5 - 4. The next batter struck out to end the inning, so he didn't get to score.

In the bottom of the fifth, the defense kind of fell apart for awhile, and the White Sox went back up 8 - 5. Brennan came up with no outs and a runner on first. He put down an almost perfect bunt this time, and though he was just thrown out, he did advance the runner. The next batter struck out. Then we got a hit on a high pop fly that wasn't caught (and I think the runner scored at this point). Our next batter got a hit. The runner went home, and the throw was made, but not in time. Meanwhile, the batter went to second. There was a throw there, that was missed, but just went a little behind second. Despite this, the runner took off for third, where he was thrown out to end the game. With the best hitter on the team coming up to bat...

Oh, well, such is the way things go in Little League...