May 14, 2011
A guy in our neighborhood, who has a boy Sam’s age, spread the word about t-ball in Mapleton that he would be coaching. I jumped on that so fast. Samuel was beside himself giddy when we went out to get him a baseball mitt before his first practice. There are several other neighborhood friends of ours on the team, so that added to the excitement. Add in the fact that Samuel found out his team was the Giants and he could barely contain himself.
So the games go like this . . . each player on Team A gets a turn to hit the ball and run a base while all the players on Team B play the field. There are no offical outs, no score keeping, and lots of parents out on the field. Then Team A and Team B switch. Do that two more times, and the game is over. It’s a ton of fun and I think a great way to teach a bunch of 4 year olds the fundamentals of sportmanship and teamwork.
Sam is the one in the huge orange t-shirt and black hat. 
He’s #2.
After a few weeks of practice, it was Mapleton Baseball Opening Day, complete with first games, parade, and hot dogs in the park. I dropped Sam and Erik off a few minutes before the 9:00 game and planned to scope out the parade set up when I remembered I was supposed to get balloons for our team! Dang it. I was so ticked at myself, and I ended up missing most of Samuel’s first game, but Erik caught me up and took some great videos, too. Our senstive hearted Sam has a really hard time when he isn’t the one to catch the ball, or if he misses it, or if he doesn’t tag a player out, or if he gets stuck with the pink helmet, or each time they do their team cheer that’s too loud and hurts his ears, or or or . . . ! But, he still loves it and looks forward to each practice and game, and I think it’s a really good learning experience for him. Go Giants!
Cutie little spectator.
“1-2-3 Goooooo GIANTS!”
Add Lambert in a few months, and we’re well on our way to having our own Briggs Fam team.
Yeah, you try to get ten 4 and 5 years olds riding in the back of a truck to all look and smile.
The parade. Can you spy Sam in the bottom right? That’s the back of his blonde little head in the corner. Only pic we got of him in the actual parade. I ran after the truck screaming and waving my arms trying to get his attention, just so he would know we were there. I still don’t think he saw us.
