Hank said it again

“Streee-rike. . . two.”

Yes, ball season is upon us.  Tonight the Promise Keepers won their season opener against the (Barry, give me a break!) Sanctuary of Hope.  This year, the powers that be were persuaded to divide the church league into upper and lower divisions, and we’re in the upper.  In addition to Sanctuary, we’ll be playing exclusively against Victor Baptist, Tri-Lakes Church, and Church Army.  I think we’ll play each of them about three times, and each week one team has a double header (against two different teams).  It should be a great season.

Inquiring minds will like to know that the following will be regulars for PK this year:  Of course, My Hero at third, Kevin at short, Jerry at first, Shannon pitching, Bob somewhere (maybe second?  he was limping tonight and did duties in various places), Les somewhere (maybe catching?), and in the outfield Joe, Jerod, Josh, and Steve.

Actually, tonight our three best guys were all out (Kevin, Jerod, and Steve), and we had Bo, a different Steve, and Chantsee’s friend, Tyler, filling in.  We played not so very well until the top of the final inning, where we were down 11 to 8.  We then staged a major comeback after Scott declared, “Everybody hits!”  Well, everybody did hit, and I do mean everybody!  We scored TEN runs that inning and won the game 18 to something like 14.

It’s fun to be back in my gray chair by the bleachers.  Of course, if someone else were here to keep score, that would be nice, and our cheering section definitely needs significant augmentation.  Next week it’s Victor Baptist at 8:30 PM.

One point for the YMCA

I don’t give out Y points very often and so thought this event was blog-worthy.

I had paid for Andrew’s March Parkour classes, which meet on Saturday mornings.  Then we learned that his coach would be unavailable for at least three of the five Saturdays in March, so I asked the gymnastics coordinator for a refund.  She said she could credit our account, which she did.

Today he went for his Wednesday afternoon tumbling class, for which we pay $8.  When I went to the desk to pay, I told the receptionist that the gymnastics coordinator had given us a credit for some of the March Parkour classes, and could that be applied to today’s tumbling fee.

Bear in mind that in three years (off and on) of dealing with the Y, I don’t think I have EVER been able to have one employee look up something that some other employee put in their computer and have it actually be there, but today, miracle of miracles, the receptionist looked up our account, said we had a $20 credit, and applied $8 of it to Andrew’s tumbling class fee.

A non-stressful interchange at the YMCA front desk; something new and different!

Tennis, anyone?

It was a sunny, cool fall afternoon, and Scott and I decided we should take advantage of the sunshine to do something fun together.  I suggested we go to Stockstill and hit some tennis balls.  I am not a good tennis player by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy just hitting the ball back and forth.  Scott invited Josiah to join us and together, we three had quite a fun time of it.

First, Josiah and I on one side spent a lot of time hitting them back to Scott.  Then we worked a bit on serves.  I am not very good at serving, but at least I was able to provide a level of comic relief to the guys.

Next, Josiah and I actually played a set against each other.  He won all six games handily, but it was fun.

Finally, Scott and I played a set together against Josiah.  It was close, but he ended up winning, thanks largely to my consistent double faults when serving.  However, I do want it to be known that in the final game, ALL SIX of my serves were in the appropriate little whit box.  I felt quite satisfied!

How about those Cardinals?

There was great rejoicing among the elder four Roberts’ last night, as the Cardinals beat the Phillies 1:1 and advanced to the final round of the National League Championships.  We watched the game at our vacation home.  Actually, Katie watched it in Virginia; Scott, Jessica and I watched it upstairs; and the boys played on the Wii downstairs.

I felt terrible for Ryan Howard, who was injured on the final play of the game, but I sure was happy for St. Louis.

BoSox out, Cardinals in

And there was great weeping and gnashing of teeth. . .

And there was much rejoicing.

PKs begin season well

Tonight the Promise Keepers started their fall ball season in the Men’s Recreational league with double-header wins over the BT Bombers and The Track.  My Hero played exceptionally well and is particularly proud of the strawberry he achieved sliding into second.

My goal is to learn the right way to keep a box score.  I did keep it for both games on the forms provided, but I used markings that made sense to me and are probably completely incorrect.  What made it even more difficult was the fact that they kept putting in people to run for our gimpy folks.  I showed Jessica my works of art, and, while she was able to follow them, when I told her that I kept up with all of it except the RBIs, she said, “Oh, now that’s very bad.  RBIs are important.  I also figured out that if you are keeping score, you cannot actually watch the action of the game.  You only watch long enough to see if the hit ball is caught and then you say to yourself things like, “OK, Barry went to third, Victor’s on first, Shannon came home.”  I guess at that point I was also supposed to note that Victor made an RBI, but by then, the next player would be up to bat, and I was still scribbling.

For those who care about the details, we had nine players, as follows:

P – Shannon

C – David

1B – Barry

2B – Bob

SS – Kevin

3B – Scott

RF – Victor

CF – Steve

LF – Joe

PKs face Church Army in post-season tournament

We knew it would be tough when we learned that Max (1B), Kevin (SS), and Jordan (CF) would all be gone, but we did have ten, and we gave Church Army a good run for their (mouthy pitcher’s) money.

Scott played 3rd, and as the lead-off batter, hit a solid single.  Yay, Scott!  On a later play, when by all rights he clearly should have stayed at 2nd, he took off like a shot, did a tremendous slide into 3rd, and was SAFE!!!  On the next hit, he scored our first run, and I told Katie, “I saw him hit the ball, slide into 3rd, and score the first run of the game.  No matter what happens, it’s been a good night.”

When he finally stood up after his awesome slide into 3rd – we were wondering why he was kneeling there. . . was it that he couldn’t get up, or was it just a dramatic pause to impress the fans? – I thought back over his dislocated hip, messed up knee, and four broken ribs, and was again very thankful to God that the man can play softball.

Church Army hit well – no surprises there – and we had one particularly bad inning on defense, during which we allowed nine runs.  We did stage a minor comeback, but then lost 16:9.

Give our cobbled-together team, numerous absences, and a broken-ribbed manager for the first half of the season, I think our 7 and 4 pre-tournament showing was respectable.  And at least we lost to one of the best teams.

Fall ball starts August 18, and we need players.  Anybody wanna play ball?

Patchwork quilt prevails

Let’s see.  In former years, the Promise Keepers’ line-up was something like this:

P – Troy  (now playing for a different PK team in a more competitive league)

C – Les  (not playing for us this year)

1B – Max

2B -Tony  (not playing for us this year)

SS – Kevin

3B – Scott

LF – Mark

LC – Jerod

RC – Danny  (not playing for us this year – and I’m glad)

RF – John  (not playing for us this year – and I’m sad)

Thankfully, we’ve gained two great players in Dave (usually 1B) and Ryan (2B or outfield), although Ryan sometimes has to work on Thursday nights, and Dave is away leading a mission trip for the month of June.

Given all that, plus the fact that it’s summer and at least one or two guys are bound to be out of town or have family commitments on any given Thursday, Scott is having to piece together half of his team each week.

Tonight we had:

P – Max  (now our regular pitcher, but will be gone next week)

C – Mario  (great athlete, but suspect that last week may have been his first time to ever play softball)

1B – Brock  (don’t know where he came from, has played with us for two weeks)

2B – Doug  (haven’t seen him before tonight)

SS – Nathan  (drove down from Springfield to help Scott out)

3B – Scott

LF – Jerod  (great out fielder and super-fast base runner; will be gone next week)

LC – Mark

RC – Bob

RF – Ryan  (gone next week?)

So, our mixed bag of players managed to beat out a not-too-competitive opposing team, 8 to 6 tonight.  What will next week hold for our intrepid Promise Keepers and their fearless recruiter?

3B, 2B, & C

It was certainly a first in several ways.  Last night was the first softball game of the season, with the newly-organized Promise Keepers facing off against Exciting First (Baptist of Forsyth).

The former Promise Keepers (manager:  shortstop Kevin) decided that after several years of not being seriously challenged in the Thursday night church league they would shift to playing in the Friday night Men’s Recreational League, which is more competitive.  However, this posed a problem for my husband, as we have a prior commitment on Friday nights.  What to do?

Never at a loss when faced with a situation that is not in his favor, Scott decided to set up and manage his own team to play as the Promise Keepers on Thursday nights.  He convinced several of the former team members to join him (although a number of them are also playing on Friday nights and some are even playing Wednesday nights in the Co-Ed League, as well), and he had told us that he had about 12 players, which is plenty as only 10 play.

However, come 6:30 PM yesterday, several guys were gone, so Josiah was pulled in to play catcher.  Considering the circumstances, we fans think he did quite all right.  The circumstances would include the fact that he’s never played catcher (which he played standing instead of squatting); he doesn’t own a glove or cleats (he played in tennis shoes – noteworthy for a guy who only wears shoes at all under duress – and used an old glove of Scott’s); and in fact, he’s never played baseball or softball in his life!

Slightly more humorous was the fact that with one of their players running late, Jessica was recruited to play second base for the first part of the first inning.  Only one ball got by her, but she and all the fans were quite relieved when Jerod arrived for the outfield, allowing Mark to move to second.  At least Jessica had played softball as a kid, regularly watches the Promise Keepers games, and follows Cardinal baseball; she has a good feel for the game.

Given all that, for about 10 minutes there were three members of Team Roberts all playing for the Promise Keepers – in fact, they comprised a third of the team.  I was a proud and happy wife-mom.

Scott played well at third, hit nicely, and ran a bit more slowly than usual.  I think we all had December 19 on our minds as he loped around the base path, and we were reminded again of how very good God has been to him.  It should also be noted that Scott scored two runs.  = )

Final score:  PK 13, EF 8.

PKs score big with short team

Our loyal readers will no doubt be thrilled to know that last night the Promise Keepers won both games of their double header, wrapping up the final one at about 11:00 PM.  Team Roberts was there to cheer our guys on, and as usual, Yours Truly shouted herself hoarse.

Four of our regulars were gone (John – RC, Max – 1B/P, Jerod – LC, Dave – 1B), and another regular (Les – C) had to leave after the first game.  However, Jeremiah and Ryan stepped in to play outfield and second base, respectively, and with only nine guys, we stomped both other teams.

Jeremiah did take a hard tumble resulting in a twisted ankle, so, unable to run, he moved to catcher and the other gents rotated around.  There were several nice slides in to second and a number of great defensive plays on the base paths.  Several home runs were hit over the fence, and My Hero managed a two-run homer inside the park! Justin completed a lovely diving catch with body roll in left field, and Ryan caught the fly ball that ended the second game.

Congratulations to all the Promise Keepers on two jobs well done!