Griffin's First Days of Teeball

I had kinda hinted around on the Best5Zach Outdoors Facebook page that Griffin is WOEFULLY unprepared for teeball. I totally blame myself. I have tried my dangedest NOT to let him be a "middle child", though he is one. Griffin, if you didn't know, is a very special boy to Alyse and I. Maybe even more special to her because of what she had to go through. I won't go through the specifics, but she had to spend around 3 months in the hospital on bed rest for him because of a condition they had. The end was particularly hard on her because of medication. He was 7 weeks early and had to stay in the NICU for several days.

Believe it or not, Griffin is a very healthy boy and you would never know that he was brought into the world with such low expectations at life.

Here he is, if you didn't know what he looks like compared to his days in the NICU:

Ok, the sappy stuff is over. It's my fault that he doesn't know anything about the game of teeball. Aubree was hitting off the pitches at his age and had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Other than knowing that he was generally at the field to play teeball, he didn't know much else about the game. He is GREAT, however, at telling Aubree to "watch the ball" and "hustle".

Tryouts were quite hilarious. There was 14 teeball teams and they had broken tryouts in to 2 different groups. But that still meant poor Griffin (and all the other boys) had to wait and wait and wait for their turns to show their stuff. Naturally, my boy walked up to the plate facing the wrong way. He got turned the right way and got the bat up to hit. He looked a little "unconventional" to say the least, but he laid down a great bunt and sprinted to right field like a champ. And then to center field. Then to the pitcher's mound and finally home plate. I couldn't do anything but laugh. I am sure that rocketed him up the draft boards.

I was out of town doing some work and managing to Snow Ski in Utah for his first few practices. Sunday was his first scrimmage. He had two at-bats, both of which he managed to get a decent, yet unconventional, swing and hit that landed him on base. I guess the deadliest hit in teeball is the slow dribbler in front of home plate. He did manage to score and he even stayed in the baseline doing it!

Alyse made the remark to me that it looked like the bat he was using (which I bought for Christmas last year) appeared to be heavy. Nonsense, I said. A teeball bat is a teeball bat (though I DO know that there is no such thing for softball, fishing, cars, well....everything in life). But, at her insistence, I went to the dugout to see what weight bats everyone else was using. Griffin is no weakling, so he either had ZERO form or the wrong bat. First bat was 11oz. The next was 12oz. Then a 10oz. Many more in that range. Then Griffin's, coming in at the heavyweight 17oz. Guess that explained some things. But, he did hit. And he did score. On the way to the dugout, he would hand out high-5s to everyone and proclaim that he had "won". I wasn't about to tell him otherwise. In fact, I went to the dugout and gave him a few high-5s of my own!

In the field, he managed to avoid picking flowers, his nose, or eating dirt. Instead, he occupied his time by covering his face with his glove. Smart and safe, at least. I'll give him that. We yelled for him to pay attention, to which he would only smile and wave at us. I went to the fence next to him to explain that the ball may hit him if he doesn't pay attention. But, no balls were ever hit right at him, which is a good thing because he never moved to any hits anywhere.

On one of the last at-bats of the game, the kid hit a worm burner right at Griffin. We yelled for him to get it. But, he was too bust inspecting his glove. The ball rolled right at him, hit him on the foot and died. He felt it hit, looked down, and stared at it like it was a martian. But then something clicked and he realized what we were all trying to tell him. Going to be a GREAT season!

Special thanks to JD for the pic!