Supahstar

I never really thought this was possible but a nerd birthed a supahstar baseball player.. at least for one night. The boy had his debut as the pitcher for his team. I was a little worried he might get nervous and blow it. Sometimes I put my own less than stellar sports acumen on the boy. I forget he is his own person and may do significantly better than I did. Not that the bar is set that high mind you.

I equate the kids pitching to something of a wakefieldish type knuckler. He has no wind up. He barely waits to throw his next pitch. He just tosses it in like he is throwing a pass. Except it has some kind of weird arc to it that throws other batters off. I saw three batters jump back out of the way of pitches that were called strikes. Strange and amusing.

He started his first inning a little wild. A few bad pitches and some less than stellar infield play caused bases to be loaded with one out. I thought he was going to melt down here. One good sign of the inning was everything people hit was on the ground. After giving up one run he buckled down and threw a pitch. The guy lined it right to him. After a little bobble he tossed it to the first baseman for an out. The first baseman was able to get the ball home for an inning ending double play.

He singled in an RBI to help himself out and got up for a second round of pitching. Amazingly he threw exactly 12 pitches, striking out three batters, and only allowing one man on base on a first baseman's error. He had just struck out his second guy when the batter hit a grounder straight at the first baseman. Instead of getting the ball and touching the bag, the first baseman ran to the bag letting the ball head straight into right field. It could have been a 9 pitch 1 2 3 inning, instead the boy had to get one more guy out.

The coach then pulled him in favor of the star pitcher who gave up about four runs, missed third base costing the team another run, and just barely hung on for the win. I was a little pissed that he got pulled after a perfect inning but sports at this level is all about who you know. The coach may have just wanted to end the night on a high note also. You never know.

At the end of the game my son was named MVP and got his second game ball of the season. He finished up with two RBIs and some stellar pitching giving up only one run. He was flying high all the way home as everyone was praising him. Us Wafflers love to get our egos stroked!

It is nice to see him have some success and fun at sports. I on the other hand sprained my shoulder rolling over in bed this morning. It was an odd experience. I lifted my head up to move over to a new position and jammed it into the top of the bed causing some severe pain. I did not even know that was possible. Ah well.