Saturday morning brought to a close the Dodgers' fall baseball season for J.P. and his teammates.  I've  enjoyed the respite that Tuesday evening practices provided me from my daily life, especially the ever present worries about my mom.  Having an opportunity to get out not he field with the boys and several of their fathers - my friends - was the highlight of each of my weeks this fall.

There were times, during a stolen moment or two during practice, when I took a minute to glance around and take it all in.  Several of the moms, sitting in camping chairs by the parking lot on the first base side of the field, talking and laughing while the younger siblings played in front of them.  My assistant coaches leaning against the fence, holding their baseball gloves, talking amiably.  The boys, always the boys, playing catch in left field and chasing missed balls.  I knew then and I know now that those are the good times, the times I will miss desperately when the boys are older and have begun to scatter.  I love coaching baseball.

As predicted, for the boys it was a fall season of struggling, failing a lot, succeeding occasionally and, most importantly, learning.  It was the boys' first season of kid pitch baseball, which meant learning to hit a pitched ball from another boy and learning to pitch a baseball to a boys trying to hit it.  I'm not sure which was more of a struggle for them.  What I wanted them to learn, though, and what I think they did learn, was to stay in the batters box and not step out when the pitch was coming.  I also wanted every boy to pitch in a game if he wanted to and we accomplished that goal, as well.  Throwing strikes was s little more difficult, though, but time and again I saw boys fight through control problems to get out of an inning.

Most of all, I saw boys learning and improving, literally from pitch to pitch in the same at bat, which was amazing and rewarding.  By the end of the season, the boys had learned to run the bases with proficiency, for the most part, and to steal second or third base on their own when their was a passed ball.  Their wasn't as much fielding as in machine pitch baseball because there were so many strikeouts and walks, but that will come with time.

J.P. played well.  He slumped late in the fall season, once striking out looking three times in one game and two times the next game.  But he battled through it and in the second to last game of the season in the last inning with two outs, he laced a double to right center field.  As he rounded first and headed for second base, my heart stopped as it looked like he would be thrown out easily.  The baseball gods were smiling at him, though, and as he slid hard into second base, the shortstop dropped the throw.  J.P. stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants with huge grin on his face.  I looked at Jude and her dad and gave them a thumbs up sign.  Damn, J.P. needed that hit in the worst way and he got it.

We worked in a couple of coaches' meetings at Eldey's in 12South, always a highlight for me.  One of the moms recently mentioned to me that she loved her "baseball family."  You know what?  I do, too.

Aidan, J.P., Benton, Wes, Braden, Jonathan, Hank, Ellis, Benjy, Porter, Dylan and Cooper made up one of my favorite groups of boys to coach.