Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Championship Game

Last night was Ryan's championship baseball game. We had won four games to earn the right to play for 1st or 2nd place. That wasn't that big of a deal though, since we had beaten all of those teams lots of times duing the regular season. There was only one team we lost against: the red team. And, it would be the red team we would face for the championship.

All through the day, Ryan would come up to me and say things like "the red team can hit the ball really far" or "I'm going to have to hit it in the outfield against the red team". So, I knew he was nervous. Heck, I was nervous. But, we went through the day, kept it as low keyed as possible and at 7:30 he was ready to play.

We lost the coin toss and had to bat first. Our bats were going pretty good, but that red team is really very good, so hits out to centerfield were kept to singles. We scored two runs. Red team's up. They scored 2 runs.

Second inning: we scored three more runs. Thanks to a double play by Ryan, they scored zero runs. 5-2.

To be quite honest, innings 3-5 are kind of a blur. I know there were some great hits and some amazing plays, including a diving catch made by our shortstop. At the end of five innings, the score was 7-6. Orange team was winning.

Pinto rules have a 5-run cap per inning, except in the 6th inning, you can score as many runs as you can. I knew we would need to score a few more, except that we were at the bottom of our lineup and they were at the top. Kid #1 gets up to bat and gets out at first. Kid #2 gets up to bat and gets a single. Kid #3 brought us to the top of our lineup with one out. Again, some details are fuzzy. BUt, when Ryan got up with one out, I thought I might vomit. He foul tips the ball two or three times and gets down to his last pitch (you only get 7) and rips one over the third baseman's head hitting in the 10th run. That would be the last run we would score.

Red team gets up and starts off with lots of hits. Fuzzy details. All I know is that the tying run is on third, the winning run is on second and there are two outs. I know that Ryan made one of the outs with a great throw to first base. There were some bobbled balls and errors by us for them to get there and I can see tears welling up in the third and second baseman's eyes. Ryan looks over at me and I can tell he's feeling it. "That's OK, buddy, get this out and you're done!" The next batter comes up. He makes contact with the ball and what happens next...well, this ought to tell you.



No time for losers, cuz we are the champions of the world!!


The ball went right to Ryan, he chased the guy down and tagged him and the game was over!! Moms were cheering and hugging. Grandmas were crying. One kid's aunt was doing an Indian War Cry. And, let's just suffice it to say, I've decided to rethink that whole no-Depends-until-I'm-40 thing! 10-9 was the final score. It doesn't get more exciting than that!

4 comments:

Nate said...

What an amazing game. We've got to see you guys again soon, it's been much too long.

Anonymous said...

WAY TO GO! That would have been a heart-stopper for me!

Love you, Maki

Lawrence A. Fing said...

Insane ... clown posse.

Tracie Butka said...

Congraulations Ryan, and Team! From Trey Butka