First Baseball of The Season

I love hanging out with my 7-year-old son. He has more fun than anyone I know -- expect his friends Bryan and Martin. I picked him up at school last night -- a simple Friday night -- one of the first Friday nights of Spring after this miserably long winter and after this miserably long week, and he says casually, "I think Bryan and Martin are out playing soccer on the field," which meant the field in front of the school. It was a long walk from where we were to the front where the athletic fields stretch out to the road and on the other side of the road, there's actually a farm with horses. On a slightly darkening Spring night, it would be a lovely place to walk to even if his friends had gone off to dinner which I suspected they had as it was already after six.

But I was wrong. There were there. And he was wrong -- they weren't playing soccer -- but even better they were playing baseball. Yes, on a lovely spring evening -- still light after 6:00pm -- they were playing the first baseball of the season.

It was surely an impromtu game, as there were only about 8 kids and there was a dad pitching. We were still far from them as we approached, kicking a soccer ball we had found on the way. I didn't recognize the dad at first or the pick-up team -- but what was I thinking?! If Bryan and Martin are playing, there's a good likelihood the rest of their family is out in full force and this is a really full force family. The dad I'd seen pitching was their dad of course. And the whole clan was playing ball with him. Bryan and Martin are in second grade with my son and are twins, then they have two brothers in fourth grade -- twins again! And then there's also the oldest brother in sixth grade. Five boys with two sets of twins. So when they play a pick-up game of ANYTHING, they almost start with a full team. You can say most decidedly everyone in town with one or no siblings has serious brother lust for this crew. My only child is crazy for them, because wherever they go, fun and crazy trouble are sure to be there too.

They have five times more fun than anyone we know. The evening was so much fun. First baseball and even I took a turn at bat with predictably humiliating results, still, it wasn't exactly the major leagues, even the ball had a piece of ripped off leather hanging off the side of it, which my kid, as he squatted to play catcher finally suggested he tear off, since it was so silly looking.

The spring evening was cooling off fast as the sun went down, but that didn't quiet our rowdy fun. We finally came up with a dinner plan and off to their house we went to eat pizza, tell stories and have the perfect evening this side of Fenway.