Softball Mania

I am not a baseball fan. Everyone who knows me knows how true that is. But I know the game pretty well having practically grown up at the Little League diamonds. My best friend's parents were really involved with Little League and I helped out at the snack bar a lot. Not because I loved to watch the game. Oh, no. The real reason was that the snack bar faced the Babe Ruth field where the cute guys played. And, a little known fact, but I once helped my dad coach a farm team. I also supported the boys through their many years of playing baseball.
When Tommy and I got married it was no secret that softball was pretty high up there on his priority last...probably fourth after family, religion and job. In the early years I would go out to his games and cheer (I even would ride the Greyhound bus to his games during the first year of our marriage).
It used to be fun. I would sit on the bleachers with all of the other young mothers. We would chase our kids, swap babysitter horror stories, recipes, and shopping finds. There was always those one or two single guys on the team who had a different girlfriend in the bleacher every two or three weeks. Occasionally one of them would have a mom who would come to every game. We wouldn't pay any attention to the game unless our own husband was up. It was more for socializing for us. Fun times!
We did live through the seasons when he would play in three different leagues in three different towns all on the same night. That might sound crazy but I loved those nights. We would have wonderful conversations as we travelled to make the 6pm, 8pm and 10pm games.
Later on I had a job where I worked nights. Tommy would take the boys with him and they would sit in the dugout. Well, actually some of that time one might have been in a stroller. I wonder what the wives said about me. But those days of hanging out with dad in the dugout created a wonderful and lasting bond between him and the boys. He worked six days a week and Sundays were always filled with Church and meetings. So that time with him on the softball diamond was so important. And they too had the time in the car to talk and share with each other.
Fast forward to now. We will celebrate our 29 wedding anniversary this year. That's a whole lot of softball games. Tommy has also passed the half century mark. One might think he has slowed down in playing softball. But one would definitely be wrong. Just last week he played in five games and two of those were playoffs. His team won a championship in one of the leagues.
What is different is that now all three of the boys are teammates with him on three of those teams.
The other two? Well, we lovingly refer to them as the "old guys" team. He found a couple of over 50 leagues. He gets to be the young guy on the team.
So here's to my favorite player! And he's still is the cutest guy in uniform.