Ok, as most of you know....Mary is not a very good softball player. It doesn't bother me.....much. She loves to talk about it. She loves her uniform. She is giddy with excitement over the cheers and the snacks, but as far as the actual games go, she could take it or leave it. As her coach, I spend the better part of most games hollering out to her something like, "Mary please watch the ball so you don't get hurt", "Mary please get out of the dirt", "Mary please play attention to the game!"
Up until last week, she would not practice at home, because to her softball was only something she did with her friends around. But for some reason last week she started having me pitch balls to her whenever we were outside playing, and her hitting has improved dramatically. Amazingly with mine and Greg's genes, Mary appears to be pretty fast, so as long as she makes contact with the ball, there is a pretty good chance she will get on base. Today she was the only girl on teh team to get three hits off the coach (you get three thrown piches, and then you move to the tee)
So today was our first "real" game. real meaning we had an umpire ( a 15 year old boy who was constantly checking his phone) and we kept score. As you can probably guess, we did not win (11-17), but Mary finally made an out. Here is how I imagine an announcer would have called her miraculous out-
And its a hit! A slow grounder to the second baseman. O'Riordan makes a clean stop and picks up the ball...but it appears she has no idea what to do with it. She moves towards first but stops....the runner is safe at first. But wait- the runner is making a break to second. The coach is screaming at O'Riordan to tag the runner. The baserunner seems to have forgotten where she is. She is stopped nearly five feet off of first base, but she is making NO attempt to make it to second. The A's coach (me) has finally gotten through to O'Riordan that she needs to go tag the runner. O'Riordan runs over and tags the runner...but wait she is tagging her with an empty glove. The coach is going beserk. Wait for it- there it is O'Riordan FINALLY realizes that she must tag the runner with the ball and she does. That runner is outta here!
After the game, I was talking with one of my assistants, and told her I simply had to give the gameball to Mary because of two reasons 1.She is one of a handful of girls who has not gotten a gameball yet, and 2. It is quite possible she will not make another out for the remainder of the season!
Mary was estatic. We went out for ice cream after the game to celebrate. And she is hoping to stretch the celebration into a trip to Chuck E Cheese tomorrow for lunch. Im not sure about lunch, but I sure was happy for her today, and more than a little proud as well!
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