Baseball

My favorite thing about the spring is baseball. Ok...maybe not all of baseball just little kid baseball. I love it all. The smell of the grass and dirt. The kids with dirty knees and koolaid stained faces. The sunflower seed spitting and nachos with little bits of overcooked cheese. How the kids look wobbly with their oversized cleats and how their helmets are about 3 and 1/2 times as big as their bodies. I love the parents who say things that I don't understand like "Come on, hips and whips this time!", "In and on the outside!" and "Getcha head in the game"...oh wait that last one was from High School Musical. I love how the little siblings play in the dirt and eat rocks. In essence there are very few things I would rather be doing on a spring Saturday than sitting on a bench and cheering for the ________ (insert name of team my student is playing on). Going to Little League games is the only thing that makes my ovaries flutter and my biological clock tick. I work 7 hours a day with kids and that is extreme birth control and yet when a goofy looking kid who is all arms and legs and no teeth tries to hit a ball it make me understand why people chose to procreate. Anyway... I love baseball and I was enjoying one of my student's games this evening (they won! YAY!) and three funny things happened:
1. This very small kid was playing first base and every time he caught the ball he would leap off the base, fly through the air, and catch the ball with such great enthusiasm that he would jump off the base and belly flop on the ground, ball in glove, and tippy toes about 1 inch off the base. The runner was always safe and the first baseman was always a few centimeters from glory.
2. As one of the Jayhawks was running around third, a Cardinal caught a pass and then threw it with a lot of gusto. With soooo much gusto in fact that it flew past third, flew past the third base coach, flew past the fence, flew past the spectators, flew past the previously mentioned kids eating dirt, and into the field across the way. The best part was that no one knew what to make of it. Pandemonium ensued. The coaches were yelling. The parents were yelling. The kids were running everywhere but on the bases. Hilarious!
3. The Cardinals were in outfield and as the first hitter was going up the umpire called a one-minute timeout. This was confusing to everyone as it seemed like an illogical delay of game. Of course it seemed illogical until a tiny little body hopped over the fence, sprinted to the tree line at the edge of the field and then proceeded to relieve himself why everyone waited for him. The umpire said he had a minute and by golly it took him just under. Apparently it was an emergency and the coach said it would take more than a minute to get to the bathroom and back so the woods were the only option. The best part of this is that when the poor kid got back all of the spectators gave him a standing ovation.