Baseball!!!!!

Yes, I intentionally put several exclamation points in this title. I am VERY excited about Lucas starting t-ball. Much more excited than he is, but I see some possibilities of him liking the game.

His team is called the Wild Wolverines and the kids on the team are 4 and 5yrs old. Jeff is one of the three assistant coaches and Lucas E's dad, John, is the head coach. Basically the way it works is that only the pitcher gets any action in the field, so the coaches rotate the kids through that position. And when they get the ball they are told to run to first since there aren't any 5yr olds that can consistently catch (a throw from another 5yr old). For offense, they all get to hit and stop at first base, no matter where the ball is in the field. Sounds simple, but it's been a challenge to get them all to remember this. There are a couple of clowns on the team, but mostly they pay attention, which surprised me. Lucas and a couple of other kids are really focused. Every time I look in the field Lucas is the "baseball ready" position, which is the standard hands on kneess, head up with eyes on the ball. His hitting is on par with the rest of the team's, although he has gotten some good hits in the game. When we practice at home he really connects with about 1 out of 5. He's still spinning on his front leg sometimes, so we're just working on form. One thing that made me smile was last week when we were "practicing" in the backyard. Lucas was just hitting normal, but Jeff and I asked him to hit it down the first base line (or the fence in our backyard). He said okay and closed his stance so that he could guide it down the right side of the field. That was instinct - we didn't tell him. I was tickled : )

The only thing I'm not thrilled about is that Jeff gets to coach while I entertain Ellen on the sidelines. Not to worry though, Ellen is going to be a tough little ball player herself. She came up to Jeff yesterday with a tennis ball and said, "Dada, I play baseball in the front (yard) with you." I've already told Jeff that I'll be helping coach her team.

Lucas is # 14. In the first picture he's sitting next to his bud, Lucas E. In the 2nd picture they are doing a prayer/talk before the game. 3rd picture is team huddle and 4th pic is him talking to another teammate.