Baseball

Gosh, summer has really flown by this year. We started our summer ball season in Mid-May and the first game was on May 21st.  Because of rain things began a little slowly but we made up for that later.  Our Little League Team (11 and 12 year-olds) had an interesting season. They started off terrible.  The team was inexperienced, and it showed. But they improved and won the Border League Championship!   Caleb played pitcher, catcher, and shortstop.  His favorite position is pitching (lots of contact and glory).  He also catches, which I enjoy because it's easy on his arm and because he's a great catcher. He knows how to think, he knows where the play is, he knows when to hold the ball and when to throw it, and he's willing to use his body to stop the ball.   The two games I most enjoyed watching Caleb play were a Babe Ruth game in Ovid, during which he caught for 4 or 5 innnings and probably only made two errors, and the final game of the season, against Holyoke, when he ran from the catcher's position toward the mound, made a great throw to second base, and then went right back to his position in order to catch the ball and run down the 3rd base line to tag a runner out.  He later said that he didn't like doing that "because it felt weird to run all around with my gear on", but doing so set him apart as a good catcher that night. 

Caleb's favorite game was the Little League game in Revere. During that game he did something hasn't done before or since: hit the ball about 350 feet!   He also made a diving catch at shortstop. 

Other baseball highlights were Caleb's teammate Tate spending 4 days with us in late June and being invited to play with the Northeast Colorado Rattlers.  Next year Caleb will play for them, which means we will travel to Eaton, Loveland, Strotton, Limon, Brush, and Sidney. 

Maybe I liked this year better than I thought.