Baseball...have you missed it?

Yes, the boys both played baseball this spring. It was very busy, and not terribly notable for most of the season, so there weren't many posts about it. But, now that Levi is done with his tournaments, lets look at some pictures!

In one of the last games of the season, A.J. hit his first real home run. No, it didn't go over the fence, that's a really big field they're on, but you can see that the ball hasn't even been thrown to the cutoff man yet, and he's rounding 3rd. He was very happy. :)

In their second playoff game (everyone makes the playoffs, double-elimination), they went up 12-1, but barely won 13-12. Yikes. A.J.'s buddy Nate Dog (they all had nicknames on their jerseys, it was very confusing) got his "daily home run." Nate's not the most natural player out there, but when he connects, the ball goes a long, long way.

A.J. loves catching. I took a few pics of some good stops. The pitching was mediocre, at best, so he had some nasty stuff to try to stop. Lots of balls in the dirt, and some way over his head. He got to most of them, though. I must say, he's pretty good. :)

On to Levi: he is a very scrappy little player, and loves to get dirty. He dives for anything, even if he has no chance at all to get to the ball. This won't serve him terribly well as he gets older, but for now it just means he's aggressive. And his coach liked that a lot. He played pitcher and 3rd base, even as a lefty, and made lots of outs. He even caught some fly balls!

He is one of the most encouraging kids I know. He pats the other team on the back when they make it to 1st. He applauds foul balls, and good effort. He can turn around and tell you that you messed up, but we're trying to stay positive. :)

He's really fast. I don't see him run very often, we just don't have that much room in our yard. But when he lets loose, he flies. As for his number, no, he's not 00. He's 99, but the jerseys were enormous, so most of the numbers were tucked in to their pants.

We had good seasons, with a lot of learning going on. The biggest accomplishment: A.J. has improved dramatically at controlling his emotions, and not taking a loss so hard. It's still not fun, but he's usually not devastated anymore. Hooray, baseball!