Nothing better to do

“Don’t you have anything better to do on a Saturday morning at 8:30 than play baseball?”

“Well, not really…we were already here. My oldest has practice.” I pointed to the far field where we had arrived at 8:00.

We had been playing family baseball and had incorporated one of my middle son’s friends and his holder brother, as well as a few of the friend’s teammates who had shown up for practice early.

We were just doing some fielding drills.

When the coach arrived (and asked me if we didn’t have anything better to do), we moved to the adjacent field after a short foray into the lacrosse field while we waited for a dad and his son to finish batting practice (no one liked my idea of offering them outfield help – I don’t think they wanted to chase a bucket of balls). At that point, we just had our team of four -- my two younger sons, my middle son’s friend’s brother who plays in the majors, a division above my oldest’s, and me.

I pitched. My son has told me I’m pretty good – “for a lady.” I imagine that is a compliment. We both giggle at my rainbow pitches that arc real high before they land in the modified (no one can afford to be picky when there is no catcher and we only have two balls) strike zone.

We could all feel the love that day. My youngest got six “home runs,” all because the rest of us had so many “errors.” My middle son did not pitch a fit about anything and in fact, cheered his brother on. Our major-league friend congratulated me when I pitched successfully to him (I had never pitched to a lefty batter). I didn’t bat other than to whack balls at the three of them. Depending upon where my youngest was standing, either of the other two would back him up, because he missed just about everything I hit at him.

The funny thing was, all we had was a t-ball bat, which is really light and short. But my youngest was delighted that he could supply it. He doesn’t even play t-ball yet, but I let him get a bat while we were shopping for helmets for his older brothers.

I had a small cooler of snacks, and there was just enough to go around. My youngest split his bakery-sized chocolate chip muffin with our major-league friend. I had enough drinks and I don’t even know what else was in the small cooler but no one went without.

I couldn’t really imagine what would have been better to do than hang around at the ball field early on a Saturday morning – before it got too hot, and before the bugs came out (which it was, and they were when we returned to the field that afternoon for soccer).