opening day

the moment porter has seemingly been waiting for his entire life - opening day...

as we drive to the opening day ceremonies Saturday morning, just he and i (after all, it's spring sports season and both maya and molly had soccer commitments at the same time!)...porter quietly says to me

"am i dreaming?"

um, no, i say. why?

"it just feels like i'm dreaming...i'm so excited."

yes, i got verklempt.

so i tote him out to the field where the other 400 players in our little league are. he gathers with his team, and i camp out to watch the 'player's parade'. (i had arrived very early, knowing how busy it would be...so i had quite a wait before the parade began...)

and, of course, they make the littlest kids wait the longest...sort of...at least they do their waiting behind the fence...so they start parading in the major teams...then minors....AAA, AA (or whichever order those are!), coach pitch...and finally, the t-ballers....

he strikes a pose, just like the older kids did...smile and wave to the crowd, little ball player.

fortunately for me, having never attended an opening day ceremony before, i picked a good spot to camp out...and all these shots were taken through the chain link fence directly in front of me.

so here they all are...the last t-ballers on the field...and then they progress into some ego-boosting (how many of their teams won city championships - there are 4 little leagues in the city...) and blah, blah, blah...

then comes the national anthem...

then they talk about the history of little league in midland for a bit...and that the field the kids are standing on was one of the first little league fields in the state of michigan, and it's the oldest field still being used for little league games today (okay, some interesting facts...) clearly, i'm a little biased about the little league...

#1 - the president of the league offended me a bit when we first registered porter. mostly by slamming soccer. there is a big difference in the soccer club and little league. and i walked out of the little league registration shaking my head at the adult 'baseball jocks' running it.

#2 - the emails announcing and giving details about opening day were all prefaced with a basic statement of - we know last year sucked and was boring and way too long - we'll try to be better this year. so, um....needless to say, i didn't have high expectations.

so - back to opening ceremonies....they trot out some old guys from town that were on some of the leagues earliest teams in the 50s - okay, that was cool. they passed the microphone around to all of them...cute, but not necessary. they even let one of them throw out the ceremonial first pitch of the little league season.

then they renamed the field we were on after a guy (who took my registration money) who has been with the league 17 years, coached several championship teams, and held every position on the board - all without ever having a son pass through the league - he has one child, a daughter, who apparently has no interest in baseball or softball. so, i cut that jock a bit of slack. he was verklempt.


then he led all the little leaguers in the little league pledge. something i'd never heard before. i hope the players actually take it to heart.

PLAY BALL!

except now we had what seemed like an eternity to wait until it was HIS game time...after all, it was only 11:30 in the morning...porter was fully outfitted, with THREE hours to wait....

of course, we squeezed a sister's soccer game in there...and some food...and a quick nap...

and then it was time....much to porter's luck, he was assigned the coveted position of pitcher for the first game...aka, tball fielder extraordinaire! i hope he rotates to outfield for the next game, or he's going to think that all of tball is that exciting! it did give me a chance to take some great shots of him fielding...


he could frequently be seen diving for the ball (totally unnecessary) to be more dramatic.


to his luck, one time he dove there was a small gust of wind that blew his hat off...he thought that was awesome.

and then the batting....the helmets fit perfectly - um, NOT!

porter managed to get on base each time (and no, that's not automatic with tball...lots of kids did get out at 1st...) though if you made it to first, you were pretty much guaranteed to score...which porter did, in great fashion, every time. i believe he even slid into home once (totally unnecessarily, of course). the kid relishes everything baseball. here he is running from second to third...

and what a great swing...

and that grin....that's what it's all about...