Softball Etiquette

Callie finished up her season this past weekend in Alpena and although I've mentioned in my last post that it's been fun watching them get better and more competitive, this weekend provided something for the girl's to hold onto and know that they are improving.

They were winning 1-0 going into the bottom of the fifth inning of a seven-inning elimination game on Sunday morning against the Traverse City Thunder White team. We have never beaten a Traverse City for as long as Callie has been in this program, so everyone was feeling pretty happy at this point. The Thunder get a couple girls on base, but with two outs, their batter hits a ground ball and is called out at first base. The Traverse fans go crazy as they believe their player to be safe. Both teams are off the field at this point and the base ump who made the call, all of a sudden feels the need to converse with the home plate ump. After three minutes of conversation, the girl is called safe and our girls are ordered back onto the field. Traverse ends up scoring three runs after the call and we trail 3-1 going into the sixth.

I didn't get a good look at the play, so I won't say whether the call was right or not. I asked people about it and got mixed results. My wife was in the dugout at the time and saw it and thought the runner was in fact, safe, so I'm inclined to believe her. My problem with the whole situation is that if you're going to ask for help as an umpire, you need to do it immediately. You can't wait until the reaction of the fans forces you to start questioning your call and then seek help. If you aren't sure of your call, get help prior to both teams leaving the field, or tell them to stay there until it gets sorted out.

Needless to say, momentum was down at this point as our girls finally get the third out and get off the field. Fortunately, we have the heart of our lineup coming up to bat and our first two hitters reach base, including my daughter, who was hit by a pitch. Logan Solomon came up to bat and hit a ball over the left fielder's head and scored two runs to tie the game. Callie ran through a stop sign at third base and ended up scoring without a throw to the plate. (She has her dad's speed unfortunately). Logan ended up scoring right after that, giving us a 4-3 lead with six Traverse outs to go.

Callie pitched the game and shut down the Thunder in the final two innings with the help of a very solid defensive performance from everyone. The Legacies played the entire game without an error and for the first time, the team showed the willingness to look a loss in the face and turn it into a win. I was so proud of Callie and the way she held it together (with a little help from coach Stacey) and went out and did her job when the team needed her.

This led to a 1 pm game against the Richmond Blues.

There are two things that need to be mentioned before I go any further with this. The first is that weather was an issue on Sunday. Everyone knew that the rain was coming and it was just a matter of time before it got to the ball field. The second is that I believe in the unwritten rules of baseball/softball (most of them anyway). If you don't know what they are, ask me.

The game with the Blues started on time and the lineup was the same as it was for the prior one. I'm supersticious so I had no problem with that. In fact, I was telling some people who were planning on leaving that they needed to stay because the mojo wouldn't be there without them there.

When the game got underway, it was clear that we had spent our last energy in the game before, and it was also clear that the Blues were a better team than we were. I don't mind losing to a better team, but they way that the Richmond coaching staff conducted themselves, the loss was a bitter pill.

As I said, the weather was on the way. You could feel the temperature dropping and see the wind picking up. In the bottom of the second inning, the Blues were beating us 16-0. They are a good hitting team and they have a lot of speed. They bunted on us a lot and we were just emotionally drained from the prior game. The mercy rule states that if a team is down by 15 runs after three innings, the game is over. So the Blues are doing everything they can to get to that 15-run mark. They stole every time they got on and bunted, knowing that their speed was enough for a base hit. It was a pretty classless display since, like I said, we were obviously not as good as they were. But the worst was yet to come. We were having a hard time getting the Blues out in the bottom of the second and they needed to get out and get our last three outs for the game to be official. So their coach told a runner on third base to lead off and get called out. It's an automatic out to leave the bag early, so the ump made the call and now there were two outs. The batter got on and was ordered to leave early by the coach and did so. The base ump missed the call and did not call her out. So as our pitcher begins her windup, the girl takes off and is standing on third close to the time the ball reached the plate and is called out.

One thing that I really appreciate about our coaching staff is the fact that our team never would have pulled a stunt like that. They believe in playing “the right way,” and not embarrasing a team when they are down. We would have never ran like that on a team with such a big lead and we would have never been bunting for hits in that situation. And I can guarantee you that our coaching staff would never, ever have told a girl to leave early like that just to get out of an inning. The whole thing just stunk.

When we got up to bat, the rain started. Anyone who had been looking at the weather could see that once it started, it wasn't going to stop. So, even if Richmond had gotten those last three outs, they weren't going any further anyway, so why act like a bunch of jackwagons?

I am childishly happy to report that just over an hour after the rain began to fall, and the tournament was called off, denying the Blues the opportunity to win the tournament, and not even allowing them to count an official victory against us. Serves them right.

And while I'm at it, I cannot believe how far some of the parents and coaches go at these tournaments. For the second time in as many years, I or my wife has been forced out of a spot while our game was still going on by fans from the next game setting up their portable gazebo and not caring who's way they are in or who's view they might be obstructing. Once the game's over, by all means, set up just the way you want to, but please at least have the courtesy to wait until the game going on is over before you start claiming territory.

And if you're coaching a team of teenage girls, why do you need cleats on? Do you need better traction while waiving a runner on to the next base? Or is it maybe that you think you'll be needed to dress up like a young girl and pinch run at some point? Stop being dumb.

Ok, I'm taking a deep breath now and calming down. This was the last game of the season, so my blood pressure should be fine by spring.

Hang in there Richard

Note: This was written a few days ago and unfortunately, this is the first chance I've had to post it. I will be following this up shortly with another post. Sorry for the wait.

It's been awhile since I've written anything here. It's been kind of nice not to have anything to complain about in terms of treatments and side effects. My legs are still pretty weak, but I have noticed slight improvement over the past few days and I'm hoping that it continues.

I was terribly disappointed to learn that one of our family friends has been diagnosed with cancer. Richard Wood, who, along with his wife Connie, have been good friends of my mom for as long as I can remember. Graham and I grew up with their daughters Ann and Ellen. I am a year older than Ann and Graham and Ellen are the same age. My mom and Connie worked together at a daycare center for a few years and that meant that us kids spent a lot of time together. It's been a long time since I have talked to either one of the girls, but despite that, my heart goes out to them. One thing that I have discovered about having had cancer is that as hard as it is on the person who has it, it may be even harder on those close to the person who has it. At least when you are the one who has it, you know that you'll either recover or you won't. If you do, your suffering ends, if you don't, your suffering ends. For the family and friends of the cancer patient though, it only goes well if there is a full recovery.

I have been lucky enough to have Kelly in my life and to have her shared strength, courage and optimism. It's not easy for someone to wear that face all the time, especially when they don't always feel that way. It's important though. It's way easier to deal with cancer if the people around you are positive. As a patient, it's so much easier to deal with cancer when you know in your head that you're going to beat it. And an important part of knowing that you're going to beat it is to have the people in your life show nothing but confidence in that outcome. No tears, no doubt, and no giving up.

Ok, enough about that. Richard, I know that you're going to come through this with flying colors.

Our summer so far has been busy, but fun. Callie played really well in Midland and pitched really well in a complete-game win on Saturday night. She had four doubles and a handful of singles in the games.

I'm going to take this opportunity to complain about the way that tournament was run though. Our girls pay $50 per year to play travel softball and the rest of the funding for the program comes from a burger bash fundraiser and our home tournament. The rest is provided by the director of the program, Linda Bouvet out of her own pocket.

Midland has some other ideas regarding fundraising. I have no idea how many weekends per summer their travel team plays, but it must be an extremely high number . They must need an awful lot of money based on their demands on spectators. I must confess that I have no idea what they charged teams to play in the tournament, but unless it was free, the good folks in charge in Midland are taking advantage of parents wanting to watch their kids play. When we pulled into Emerson Park prior to the Friday night game, we were stopped and informed that it would be $10 per person for the weekend. I thought that they must have misspoke and meant $10 per car, but I was wrong. They charged us $30 and gave us an inconvenient wrist bracelet to wear for the rest of the weekend. I didn't want to put the bracelet on so we carried them around in our bags and every time we went to a field, we were asked to produce them. Heaven forbid that someone might show up for a Saturday night game not having paid their $10 entry fee. Add to that the price of the concessions and I'm pretty sure that they grossed more in three days than I make in a year.

Another thing that was ridiculous about that tourney is that Emerson Park is probably the premier softball complex in the state. It has a stadium as one of its fields that the girls got to play on with actual grandstands that run from first base to third base with a press box at the top of the grandstand behind the plate. There are very nice indoor bathrooms underneath the grandstand along with umpire rooms. However, $10 per person apparently isn't enough money to allow access to those indoor bathrooms. The doors were all locked and port-a-johns were placed throughout the complex. Just one more dropped ball by the tournament organizers.

I don't usually rant like that in public, but if that's the kind of money you need to raise to keep your program afloat, then maybe you need to rethink your program just a tad.

We have had a really good time following the girls this summer, watching them improve and be more competitive.

We go to Alpena this weekend for the final tournament of the season. So if you happen to be looking for something to do, make the drive and watch some softball. Abbie is done with her softball and may be rethinking her desire to be a catcher as a ball got through the gear the other day and hit her in the side. She was a trooper though and got back out on the field the next inning, just not behind the plate.

Andrew is still doing really well at his job, and is enjoying the paycheck that comes along with it. He recently asked me about a second job so that he could get even more. I'm proud of him and the work ethic that he is starting to show. His mom wanted to take the kids down to her mom's house and Andrew didn't go because he didn't want to miss work. There was a time when he would have quit the job in order to go.

I will update this again after my pre-surgery on August 13 to let you know what I found out.