The first with the bloody nose business was T, and there was actually very little blood involved. Just a pesky scab that wouldn't heal from all the way back before the Wisconsin trip. So we put a bandaid on it:
T actually had to fake sadness for this picture. She likes the bandaid a lot - it gets her swag. A lady at a store gave her a couple of stickers just because she has a boo boo. Knowing her, pretty soon she's going to start limping everywhere and coughing conspicuously whenever she sees someone with lollipops.
Q wore his uniform for the first time Saturday morning, and he looks pret-ty snazzy in it, I must say. As did all his pals. But why describe it when photographs can do the job so much better:
He's really still quite a novice at this whole sport, but he was very excited to be playing in an actual game. But first, the parade. Seriously. A parade. Starting at the middle school and turning down Cole Ave to the big field, where the flag was raised and...Again, why bother with so much description, when a film is available:
The game itself was far more exciting than it really had a right to be. Whooping when Charlotte hit a blooper single (turned it into a double on a fielding error) to score two runs felt about as silly as a thing can feel, but it felt pretty darn good, too. Williamstown Savings Bank won 8-3 over Williamstown Medical Associates in the first instalment of what's going to be a three-game grudge match over the course of the whole year. WSB turns out to have some pretty darn good pitching, and some decent hitting as well. Q didn't get much offense going himself, so we'll have to work on that.
After a whole day of baseball, Q still hadn't had enough, so he and I engaged in some pitching practice (he wants to pitch) in the front yard. A return throw from the catcher (me) glanced off the heel of Q's extended glove arm and straight into his honker, immeidately sending great volumes of blood toward the grass and ear-splitting cries of anguish all the way to Bennington. We got it staunched in short order, and within twenty minutes he was back to playing catch, but it was a pretty traumatic little while between the two. He'd never had a real, serious, into-the-mouth bloody nose before. He was surprised at how sticky it was, and I was surprised that I didn't absolutely freak at the sight of my bloody little boy. I did, a little bit, at the sight of his uniform pants, though. That took some serious scrubbing.
We worked on the pitching as well as the hitting again today. Q and I spent an hour or so practicing baseball down at the park this afternoon while Mami and T were at a birthday party. Q stood facing the backstop at home plate, and I knelt across from him on the opposite side of the plate, with a bucket with 12 baseballs in it. I lobbed them one at a time so that they plopped down in the center of the plate, and Q would hack away at them. We did a bucket of 12, and he connected with one. Barely.
Q then helped me pick them up and put them back in the bucket, and said, "I'm going to hit like Greg Counsel."
Counsel is a Milwaukee Brewer who stands pretty much straight up and down at the plate and slowly twirls the end of his bat , which is held almost straight up in the air, while waiting for the pitch. It is the most ridiculous stance ever - it could only be made more ridiculous through the use of props and sound effects. Q stood there and twirled his bat in the air, smiling sneakily at the silliness of it.
He hit all twelve balls, many with positive authority.
So, good luck coaching him, fellas. He is going to hit goofily. Just no two ways about it.
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