Baseball!

It's spring training time. The Beaver has begun his baseball practice and I get to watch Coach Curmudgeon turn a slap dash group of Bad News Bears into a well-honed pitching-hitting-fielding machine.

I call Beave's coach that because he has a gravelly voice, but he's great with the boys in a stern but humorous kind of way. The group this year is going to take some seasoning . . . one kid out there warming up needs to be signed up for remedial jumping jack lessons, I swear.

It doesn't help that the field the school uses is pretty rough. The ground hasn't been broken in, it needs some real sod-busting. It's all rocky! When a grounder comes your way it could hit a hard lump and take off in 50 gazillion directions, or straight up your nose. That keeps things lively!

I was watching the first batting/pitching practice tonight and we've already had a "cup incident." That's where one of these studly young men think they can wear the cup protection without the actual holder (you know just sliding it into their briefs) and then takes a direct hit which moves the cup and slams it directly into (or even worse between) the "fellas." Oh man! The whole team was feeling this guy's pain. And I was kinda sorry I was there to witness it.

With only a week and a half until the first game they've got a lot of work to do. I'll keep you posted.