Saturday, June 14, 2008

You can't get away with anything at our house

Yes, Bee, more sports.

Youngest Son went 2 for 3 at his summer league game the other day and he was pretty pumped about that, but what he really wanted to tell us was that he scored from second on a bunt.

This assertion was met with some skepticism in our house.

Youngest Son was not blessed with blazing speed.

It's not just him. In writing about the kids I used to coach at Bluejay Park, I mentioned that what we lacked in size, we also lacked in speed. Every boy born in 1993 in the Chicago area, it seems, runs like he's carrying a piano on his back. (The girls born that year seemed to get all the athletic talent, at least at our grammar school. The girls won conference titles in every sport... the boys won an occasional game.)

Youngest Son was greatly encouraged by his grammar school baseball coach who stressed that even a slow kid can be a good baserunner. And he's worked hard at increasing his speed -- he runs several times a week, even when nobody's watching.

And maybe it is no longer accurate to say that we'd have to time him with a sundial... but Olympic sprinting is not in his future.

Thus, our hesitance to immediately accept his representation that he scored from second on a bunt. A few probing questions seemed in order. Middle Son asked, "Did the first baseman break his leg?"

But Youngest Son insisted, and he told the tale again. And, no, he stressed, the first baseman did not break his leg going for the bunt.

One of the assistant coaches on the Youngest Son's school summer team was a teammate of Middle Son's in high school and college; Middle Son pulled out his cellphone and called him.

You can't get away with anything at our house.

(And, yes, in case you're wondering, Middle Son's teammate did confirm at least the broad outlines of Youngest Son's story....)

3 comments:

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

well i thought "maybe" with all the fish oil i am taking i could concentrate long enough to read a sports post, but no, sorry curmy. maybe next time you could put in something about a cruise ship or a cat or cake? just askin'???

smiles, bee
tyvc!!!

Jeni said...

Conversations -and questions along the same lines as your Middle Son' (Did the first baseman break a leg?) remind me of many, many conversations that went on in my house when my kids were growing up -still happen all the time today when we are all together for a family dinner, etc. Almost as if your family and mine have the same traits isn't it? I love that kind of humor -as well as using it as a means of keeping others a tad on the straight and narrow too.

sari said...

It's funny, during Little League this year it seemed to me that all the kids were running in slow motion. I'm glad it's a universal thing.