O Say Can You See

It's Opening Day today. The sun's forcing it's way out even though it's still cold. We should be able to get the game in.

The boys still haven't had a chance to practice much. We had a new player assigned to us too, a boy my youngest played basketball with this winter. A nice kid, athletic. He was going to play lacrosse this summer but I reminded his parents that when he's an adult, he can play baseball and drink beer at the same time. Try to do that with a helmet.

Thursday, we finally had the whole team together for a real practice. We asked everyone to introduce themselves to their new teammate. When it got to one kid, a third grader with a goofy smile, he said, "Call me 'Road Kill.'" The other boys started laughing.

I muttered to Coach P., "Any of you guys call me Francis, and I'll kill you."

He replied, "The return of Slorn."

The team looked much better at this practice. We're still nervous about the pitching and so we're doing something we don't like, starting both our sons today, having told the parents we want a better idea of who can pitch and for how long before we put someone on the mound in an actual game. We've got three more games scheduled this week so we're going to have to figure that by tomorrow's practice, but in the meantime we don't want to embarrass a kid during the first game by having him try to pitch when he can't.

For today, though, we're sticking with these pitchers. They'll be heading to the mound in a few hours and they'll give it their best shot and so will their teammates. Win or lose, we're finally playing baseball again.