Awesome Play

Eric had a doubleheader today.  Memorable play- this whole season I have wondered how fast Eric really is.  He doesn't hustle, and no one has ever challenged him.  We have the kids do drills in the back yard, and they have him run in practice...  At a critical juncture at the game, he was a base runner on third base.  The batter hit the ball down the third base line, Eric started trotting towards home plate.  Eric looked behind him as a very athletic third-baseman made the catch and started to run down Eric.  Eric looked like he saw a ghost and put it into high gear and outran the third baseman all the way up the baseline.  He beat the fielder by inches all the way to home plate.  No one has ever seen Eric run that fast.  Eric's score made them one run away from tying the game. We ended up scoring two more runs that inning to end the game.  It was awesome!

Update

The last couple of posts I doubled up on some of the pictures Wendy already posted. Wendy is good at capturing what the family is up to, so I think I will primarily post odds and ends, what ever I want to rant about, and small updates.

Dad- Is sad he is no longer coaching baseball.  I had a lot of fun. 

Wendy- Everything is GPP, even though the Stake President said not to do that! Ha! Ha! Ha!

David- “Us is Hungry!” He said this as we were driving out of the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon on Sunday.

“Is the Holy Ghost Creepy?” Question at FHE.

Eric- While Eric attended nursery during church, I used to joke with Wendy that as far as girls go, it will be downhill from here on out for Eric.  The Nursery leaders were the H girl and DH and they would always give him hugs and kisses and all of the attention in the world.  Now in kindergarten, he has these girls that like him.  I call them “Barbie” because a couple of them (i.e. the Poulsen girl) look like Barbie dolls.  Now I joke with Wendy “after the first grade, it will be downhill from here, you can’t top Barbie.”

Lisa-I find it mildly amusing three boys asked Lisa to marry them this year; However, if this trend continues, I’m going to homeschool her. 

Sorry David – nothing to report for you. 

With all of the parties and stuff going on with the kids I worry that they are being over stimulated.  So, I decided we are going to make the kids pull a lot of weeds this summer.  I told Eric and Lisa they could either practice baseball in the back yard or they can pull weeds.  They all decided they wanted to pull weeds.  Eric was getting into it.  As his hands were full of weeds with the roots sticking up- “I was born to pull weeds!”

6-Year-Old Baseball

I banned Eric from sports three years ago because we signed him up to play soccer, but he never wanted to play.  He was always complaining that it was too cold, or his leg hurt, or whatever.  This last spring we figured he is old enough to play. 

Anyway, Now Eric is playing baseball with kids that started at age three playing t-ball.   

So he is the best player on his team and he was invited to try out for the all-star team.  We thought it would be good practice for him. There were 70 kids invited to try out.   His league has 16 teams.  So we get to the try out on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago and Eric is totally uninterested.  It took two hours and with all the kids there was a lot of standing around.  He did ok batting.  His fielding was terrible.  He was not catching anything, and as the ball went by him every time, he would do his little walk in slow motion to get the ball.  While he was waiting in line, Wendy gave him a talk about his attitude and he hustled after that.  Eric needs to learn how to work.  I’m hoping baseball instills a work ethic in him.

Anyway, Wendy overheard the coaches talk about Eric.  They had scouted his games.  One coach “One  play Eric was playing third base and the ball was hit to him and he almost took the pitcher’s head off throwing to first base.”  “He hit the ball really hard when I saw him play….”   I was shocked that these four coaches knew Eric.

Since the coaches knew him, he made the team despite hsi abysmal tryout performance.

At a game last week Wendy overheard one of the wives make a comment that they thought the coaches were mean. (I’m one of the coaches)  I was complaining to Wendy how some of these Mom’s coddle their kids and how I thought the Moms are crippling their kids for life.  Then I would complain how some of the coaches (not on our team) are taking things too seriously.  Isn’t there a middle ground?