Fall Ball

We were surprised when we recieved the sign ups for Fall Baseball this year - Austin is moving up into the big leagues! His birthday is right before the cutoffs - so we did it...tryouts and all!
He got placed on a solid team with a very good group of dads/coaches. No one that we knew particularly, but we enjoyed the season with them. Games were sometimes 3 nights a week and with the new start of the school year, it was alot to balance.
We were right in that Austin was the youngest on the team...in fact, he was the ONLY 6year old plaing with a team of 7 and 8 year olds ( and against teams with 7 and 8 year olds!) We were so proud of how well he did. The coach put him about 6th in the batting line up because he would almost always make contact with the ball in some way ( and he's a lefty). He definitely was not one to hit it out of the park, and some of those kids do at that age ( its really amazing to watch!) But sometimes after the big hitters causing all of the outfield team to keep moving back a little -Austin would be a secret weapon - hitting mostly in the infied and a lot of times right down the 3rd baseline. It was like the other team did not know what to do and he would almost always get on base and 9 times out of 10 bring someone into home...rbi's were his specialty.
He focused well and cheered for his team mates. His mom and dad were proud of a job well done as the season came to an end. At the end of season party, his coach did a great job - brought each player up one by one and spoke of the highlights of the season for each child and why he loved having them on the team. Each kid beamed with confidence and afterwards got to pick from some baseball memorabilia the coach had brought for them. What a way to end a season.