Heartbreak on the Mound

Tyler's third ballgame was this morning at 10:30. Since he pitched all three innings in the last game, the coach put William in to start. I think now would probably be a good time to issue a disclaimer which says:

#1 Just because I brag on my kid doesn't mean I am not supportive of the other players.

#2 It's my blog, so of course I'm going to brag on my kid!

#3 When I don't rave about the other players on the team, that does not mean I am disparaging them in any way; believe me when I say I root for all of them--I just yell for my kid a little bit louder.

#4 I repeat: It's my blog. I'll praise my kid to the skies if I want to!

So William didn't have a great game. And it is just as I suspected when the coach had Tyler pitch all three innings in the last game: Tyler and William make up the Cougars' pitching rotation. Heaven forbid either of them be seriously injured. In the second inning there were two guys on base when the coach finally pulled William out and put Tyler in. He threw a couple of balls to start but immediately started throwing strikes, and he struck out three to end the inning (without allowing any runs).

He struck out in his first at-bat but got his first hit of the season today (all the rest of his runs have been on walks), so we were excited about that.

Last inning: I really need for Randy to tell this, so I'm going to have him dictate while I type. "Tyler struck out the first two, mowed 'em down, two batters in a row. Third batter hit a ground ball right down the third base line, hit the base when it got there, got a double. Tyler's coach opted to intentionally walk the next batter because it was a tie score. Tyler had the last batter at 0-2, the runners advanced to 2nd and 3rd base. Coach on the other team told his player to run home because he knew Tyler was probably going to strike the batter out."

Okay, before I give you the big finish I feel compelled to mention . . . what followed next completely baffled me, and I have asked Randy to explain it several times. All I knew was that something BIG was going on, but because I am so deficient in the rules of baseball I was clueless at the time. Coach Hancock came out and spoke to the umpire, spoke to Tyler, spoke to the other coach, about what I don't know. And then what I saw was the ball sailing over the plate and two things happening simultaneously: the batter swinging and missing, and the runner crossing home plate. Whole lotta chaos. But all I cared about was the swinging and missing, because to a novice like me I'm thinking, "That's the ballgame!"

But apparently what happened, according to the nice man standing next to me, was that the umpire cited the pitcher for balking, and the game was over. I was like, "Excuse me, what?" I knew with certainty that Tyler, even if he was guilty, wouldn't realize that he was guilty.

Sure enough, after the game as we were rehashing all the details, Tyler said he didn't know what it meant to balk, but here's what happened: This idiot dad in the stands yelled at Tyler, "He's running, Tyler!" as he was about to release the ball, so Tyler was distracted and glanced over at the runner on third who was now heading for home, and for a split second held on to the ball before throwing it (and yes, the batter swung and missed, but I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that once or twice or twelve times).

I'll give you three guesses as to who the "idiot dad" was.

And just so you know, that last paragraph could have been written by Randy. In other words, HE was the self-proclaimed idiot, by his own admission. I didn't realize he had yelled anything, but Tyler said that he had indeed heard Randy and it messed him up. Tyler said, "Coach told us not to listen to our dads, but I did anyway!" Way to go, Randy. And there goes our winning streak.

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On a brighter note, Darcy had a softball game at 4:30 this afternoon. The two most important pieces of information are as follows:

DARCY GOT TWO HITS AND SCORED TWO RUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THEY LOST 6-4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, Darcy scored two runs and they only scored four total. I'd call that a pretty good ballgame for Little Miss Todd! And by the way, I can't remember if I've blogged about this already but in their first game they lost by thirteen runs, and in the second they lost by five. You can already see improvement! By the time the season is over they'll have just about figured out how this game is played!