One of Those Moments

Joseph has been dying to pitch for his little league team, throwing with Ryan almost every day since the season started.

And the boy is good.

But he'd only stood on the mound in three of thirteen games, and he was rocked in all three-- walking many batters and coming away with his confidence shaken.

Now there are only six innings in each game. And while kids are allowed to pitch a maximum of two innings per game, Joseph has never pitched more than one inning in a game. The head coach has three kids he's gone to all season: two boys who are really good and love to pitch, and his son-- a boy who clearly doesn't want to be there.

As of last Thursday, the team's record was 3 and 11-- the bottom of their league. And the kids were frustrated.

We had just four games left in the season (before tournament time). Because the head coach is on vacation, Ryan was given the task of coaching all of those remaining games.

One by-product of Ryan's temporary position is that Joseph would finally get a real shot on the mound-- not because he's our son, but because Joseph really wants to try, and because he really believes the boy can do it.

And quite frankly, he needs a third pitcher.

So how'd my boys do?

Well, we lost the first game: 9-8 -- against a team that is tied for first place.

Joseph was the closer, facing the meat of the order and striking out four batters in two innings, but letting go three walks and one run in the bottom of the 6th-- on a hit that was just fair that won the game for the other team.

But still his teammates were thrilled. It was close, and they all played well.

Okay, I need to stop a moment here, and share my astonishment at the fact that my son so desperately wants to do this. I understand the whole desire to play baseball-- but wanting to put himself out there, take on so much responsibility (as if he doesn't have enough).

It just boggles my mind.

Fast-forward to Sunday afternoon. The kids faced yet another strong team with a winning record.

But they were ready, making terrific plays in the field, and hitting the ball well-- resulting in a 4-4 tie going into the top of the fifth inning.

When Joseph -- the left-hander -- took the mound.



He threw three balls outside the strike zone, and was poised to walk the first batter he faced.



But then, as I held my breath and watched in amazement, my son stayed composed and threw three beautiful pitches -- striking out that first batter.

The second batter hit the ball sharply to right field for a single.

The third batter -- the top of the order -- stepped up.

Joseph struck him out in four pitches.



Finally, the fourth batter grounded out to the second baseman.

Joseph had hit the strike zone with every pitch.

In the bottom of the fifth we scored a run to take a one-run lead, bringing us to the top of the 6th inning.

Again, throwing nothing but strikes, Joseph got the first batter to hit a ground ball to the short stop (1 out!).

Next was a fly ball that was caught in center field. (2 out!).

And then the third batter hit a single.

The next kid hit a seeing-eye bounder that got by the short stop, second baseman and the center fielder.

They scored the tying run and now had the go-ahead run on third.

This prompted a conference on the mound. Joseph said he was ready to go, but his teammates wanted to first tell him that they were behind him.

That if he got the batter to hit that ball, they would be on it.



The next batter stepped to the plate, hit a ground ball to second base, and was promptly thrown out-- ending the inning.

The kids knew they had a tie in their back pocket (they can only play six innings in this league), but man they wanted that win.

Our lead-off batter, Stephen, legged a single into a double and was now in scoring position.

Joseph stepped to the plate and grounded out-- sacrificing Stephen to third base.

The next kid struck out.

But the last batter-- a sweet kid who is not a big hitter -- with one ball and two strikes, hit a slow rolling single that drove in the winning run.



The team (and their families) went nuts-- you'd have thought it was the last game of the World Series.

Postscript:

On the diabetes front, Joseph's "trainer" (that would be me) worked with the closer to bring down a blood sugar that was 377 at game time (clearly adrenaline was the culprit).

As he stepped on the rubber an hour later, his bg was 261 and falling.

Two hours post game, Joseph was 99 and still on cloud nine.