...and the bragging rights of a very proud Mom!

For those who don't know, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it here at least once, A plays baseball. She surprised us earlier this year with an unrelenting need to be on the baseball team. I feared this. My daughter, while athletic, has a penchant for starting things and getting disinterested though not as badly as my other daughter.

Still, she was persistent. She even promised to give up choir - she adores choir. So, she got signed up for baseball and I dutifully went to practices, ran a couple of drills with the kids earlier in the season, and promptly became a proud parent watching the games on Saturdays with the others. I watched A grow as a player through the season - she learned to be more consistent with her hitting, and more watchful when she's fielding, and how to work with a team and take direction from two coaches (who were both fantastic). There was always massive parent/grandparent/cousin/significant other support on our team's side (we're the Giants), and it was always a little tense when we played the Yankees - they were a really good team this year.

It was tense, but enjoyable - it was always a good game as opposed to ones we played against the Angels since they were reasonably easy to beat. They liked to leave bases uncovered while everyone and their mother chased after the ball. Best part? We didn't have any "Little League" parents on our team, save one who would give his kid a little bit of a razzing, but it was mostly good natured. We had a good team of parent supporters too.

Anyway, long story short, after being beaten by the Yankees mercilessly we started rallying and beating them. And we saw that it was good. And they kept it up and became the #1 team for the second half of the season, with the Yankees being #1 for the first half. So it came down to the Championship Game on Saturday.

We were nervous, we were excited, we were chomping at the bit, and that was just the parents. After a great at-bat (with one home run), and then a disastrous on-field (man, so many balls were missed) the Giants pulled it together and came out to win the game. There were some great runs, and some great fielding opportunities - A managed to pull off two outs from infield to first base herself. She missed a third because it went between her feet and past her glove, but someone else was right on top of her and got it to first.

The score was outrageous - the kids outscored by 8 runs, because under our league rules that's what you need to be able to make it so that the other team can't catch up. There's a max of 7 runs per team at-bat. But I won't bore you with the minutiae of the league rules and all that. The focus of this is that my former "I don't want to watch baseball, it's boring" daughter went out this year to play ball...

...and play some pretty good ball she did.

~signed a Pretty Proud Parent who had a tear in her eye Saturday when they won~