Crushing Disappointment

Hey, folks - First, I'll tell the terrible tale of Q's latest baseball game, versus Cheshire 2. Though it's hard.

Q was down to be a reserve the first two innings, and was not scheduled to pitch, much to his disappointment. He looked pretty down as all his teammates - all of them - jogged out to take the field, leaving him there to toy with a batting helmet. So I calle him over and he and I stepped out during the first to do some batting practice over at the cage. (The cage itself was locked, so I just tossed them into the air and let him smack some into the fence that surrounds it.) Bubt then he wanted to go watch his teammates in the field - Adam was pitching, and had gotten himself into a bit of a jam. So I lifted Q over the fence and into the dugout, and he watched as Adam pitched himself back and ended the top of the first scoreless. He's really quite a pitcher.

Bottom of the first, and the top of Williamstown Savings Bank's order put on a clinic, both in terms of hitting and baserunning. They cranked out three workmanlike runs, and spirits were high.

The top of the second went by similarly to the top of the first - Adam had found his stride, and mowed them down almost in order. Then WSB came to bat, and the bottom of the order had its turn. Q was up first.

Cheshire's pitcher could get some serious speed going, but his control was questionable, and Q laid off the first two pitches, fully expecting the wildness he'd shown in warmups. But each one whizzed through the strikezone, or, at least, what the umpire believed to be the strike zone - they appeared to certain impartial WSB fans to be a titch high. But we weren't calling the game, and so Q found himself in an 0-2 hole. His body language seemed embarrassed and rueful - those had been such good pitches! And then the temptation to swing was horrible, of course - but he fought it off and watched two balls go by. The last pitch was high, but Q's memory of the first two screamed that it was going to be called a strike anyway, and so he swung, but much too late, and much too haltingly, and marched off, retired. The poor little guy sat alone at the end of the bench and choked out hot tears of frustration, inconsolable. Very tough moment.

The next two batters went down similarly, and something seemed to have cracked in WSB's resolve. Charlotte pitched the third and the fourth innings, and despite getting a number of hitters to two strikes, she just couldn't manage to hit that third one, and walked in a couple of runs. A solid hit past the first baseman and the right fielder (Q) scored three, although a good throw from right field, to first, to home, held the hitter at third. And thus, the five-run maximum was reached for the inning. They headed to the bottom of the fourth, down 5-3.

At this point, I had to leave. Janneke was at home with T and the babysitter, and I would just have time to charge back, change clothes, and jump in the car to head to Bennington for out 10th-anniversary dinner at Pangea. Q would be brought home by his coach, father of Eli, the catcher / leadoff hitter, and we'd find out later how the game had gone. But I could already tell, it was just not the day for WSB. Q was upset at not pitching, upset at being a reserve for 2 innings, upset at having struck out, upset at having let the ball get past him...And storm clouds were brewing. They'd probably be rained out any minute anyway, and suffer their third defeat of the year. It looked pretty grim.

But Janneke and I still managed to have a wonderful time at Pangea, despite having had to drive there at a crawl through the driving rain that had no doubt called an end to WSB's day. I had the duck breast, Janneke had the curried vegetable stir fry, and we shared an excellent bottle of wine and reflected on ten years of wedded bliss. The speed with which they went by, the speed at which the next 15 would doubtless fly. Very, very nice evening.

We followed that with a stop at a cocktail party held by Jennifer French, a colleague of Janneke's, and met a Puerto Rican faculty member whom we'd never before been able to get to know. A few drinks and home.

Crystal, whom Q had historically given a very hard time on her babysitting stints, informed us that he had been an absolute prince with her. They'd played ping pong, and he'd won, 21-19, and he'd been polite and cheerful all night. Great news; both asleep, happily, and all was well.

I squinted and asked if he'd talked about the baseball game.

"Yep," she said. "He said they got rained out after the fifth inning."

"What was the score? Did he say?"

"He said he hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the fifth and they won, 6-5, and he got the game ball."

We howled and danced around the dining room while Crystal backed away and fumbled in her purse for her Mace.

And we all had a celebratory pancake breakfast this morning.

More later, no doubt - there's a film in the works about Tie's new big girl bed! It's in post-production now. Should be out by midnight.