Welcome to Pee-Ball
Riley’s final tee-ball game was last night. Now before you read further, I should mention a few things. This particular tee-ball league is the kind where you don’t take score, there are no strikes, no outs, and everyone gets to hit the ball. It invites parents to run along with their children and expects parents to go on the field – at least when the little siblings allow. The youngsters (many as young as three) go through the motions of playing the game, but when they get tagged out, they don't leave the base. They keep running. They get to continue the illusion that they are not out. They continue the façade by jumping and yelling when they finally get to home plate.
This set up was – and continues to be – difficult for me. I don’t see myself as the ultra-competitive type. OK, never mind. Yes, I do. When you don’t take score, HOW ARE YOU TO KNOW FOR SURE WHO WON? And when you don’t count outs and strikes, how is a child REALLY going to learn the game? I know I sound like a jerk and this is what’s wrong with sports, and yes, my girl has told me this a lot which is why since the incident she’s been the one on the field directing Riley in tee-ball and I’m the one at the sidelines with the two-year-old crawling all over me and sticking his DIRTY fingers in my nose and ears and laughing.
What incident you may wonder? Oh, it’s not that huge of a thing, really. I was simply trying to instruct Riley why it might make a little bit of sense to get off the baseline while playing first base. But no, he decided to argue, giving me lots of incorrect reasons why, when playing first base, he’s expected to touch the base at all times. I calmly went over one of the very few things about baseball that I actually know: One does not stand on the baseline while playing first base or one will end up as a pancake on the baseline with a runner on second base. How do I know this? Some memories never fade. Riley responded. And by responded, I mean SCREAMED at the top of his lungs, “YOU CAN TAKE THE FUN OUT OF DISNEYLAND!” I don’t even know where he heard that one! The child has never been to Disneyland. I simply replied, “I will take the fun out of Disneyland by grounding you from it for the rest of your life.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes.” I responded.
This makes me want to digress into a subplot where Riley is an old man wanting to take his grandkids to Disneyland but is not allowed. He couldn’t. Because he would still be grounded. But I should get to the point.
Without outs, innings go on until every batter bats. This can be an incredibly long time (as evidenced last night) and makes for about a one-inning game. Anyway, last night Riley’s team batted first then they took the field. He lost out on getting the coveted pitcher position and ended up playing short stop. During the game my son’s teammate on second base started doing the pee-pee dance before the first batter was up to the plate. By the time there was a runner on first and second, the baseman gave up and peed his pants. The coach – may the goddess bless her patience – sweetly returned the child to his mortified father who graciously took him to get a new pair of pants. The coach then asked Riley to cover second base and he obliged.
Only Riley, somehow oblivious to the previous events, suddenly became very interested in the soaking wet second base. Kim had informed him to leave it alone because there was urine on it. He then went about telling every incoming runner to be careful because there was pee on the base. Then while the next batter came up, the runner on second would ask Riley why he peed on the base. Riley would inform the runner that Riley’s teammate and not Riley himself did the deed … but he wasn’t going to say who because it doesn’t matter, and because everybody has accidents, and because he didn’t want his friend to feel bad.
Riley was drawing much more attention to the pee and the accident than it would have ordinarily received. But one thing I know about Riley is that if I corrected every annoying thing he did, he’d be in information overload and reject it all. So Kim and I continued our laissez-faire parenting and Riley continued pointing out the piss to passers-by. At one point after his announcement, the runner got so disgusted that she refused to tag the base which made Riley yell at the pitcher, “Hurry! Throw me the ball so I can get her out.”
I’ll be damned. The kid’s learnin’ baseball after all.