Lamentations of a Little League Parent...

To tell you the truth, I didn't know anything about baseball when I moved to this country. Germans don't do baseball. Soccer is the drug of choice when it comes to sports. (Go Germany! I am so glad Germany won that game against Ghana and made it to the next round in the soccer World cup. My knees were shaking there for a while...) From the first time I went to a baseball game in the US, I believe it was at a small ballpark in North Carolina, I was intrigued by this game. For one, I loved the atmosphere at the event. Seeing families out and about in the summers. Everybody from infant, teen, middle aged people, to grandparents coming to the games. What a great place to watch people.

Why at times it's hard to find people in this nation. So much of life appears to be spent indoors or driving places. When I first moved to Greeley, Colorado I asked my husband: Where are all the people? The sidewalks of the neighborhood we lived in always seemed empty. Occasionally I would see a person walking their dog. But other than that, people did not seem to have reason to walk places. I found this to be one of the major differences between Europe and the US. In Europe people spent lots of time outdoors and walking places. People walk to the mailbox. People walk to the store, or enjoy a walk to an outdoor restaurant or cafe. Most kids walk to school, the bus stop, and train station. Why is that? For one thing it is too dangerous here. There are places in the US, I discovered, that don't have sidewalks! But now I am totally off topic.

Little League was supposed to be my topic of discussion for today. I discovered it 3 years ago, when my son started playing baseball. Like I said, I was intrigued by the game when I first walked into a ballpark. How does it work? I'd ask my husband, who would try to explain it to me, question after question. After a while he'd get real frustrated with me. Don't you understand about the strike zone etc...Balls and Strikes? No, I did not. When I moved to Colorado we went to a couple more games in Denver to watch the Rockies. The atmosphere was amazing. People! Yes that's were everybody was! There were actually people laughing, talking, eating, having fun together. I found them! But I still didn't know the rules.

It took me 3 years of watching my son play baseball to figure it out. My husband had given up on me. But with every game I got another little piece of the puzzle, called baseball. I love it! Why don't we have that sport in Germany? It's fun! It's smart! And my son, the little half-German, I am learning is pretty darn good at it. I proudly watch him pitch, run, and play whatever position. Oh dear, I am turning into one of those parents? I never thought it possible. Was that really me who yelled at that umpire last night:" Ump, that was totally unfair! You need to go back to Ump- School - or whatever it is called.- ???