Softball Hero

Let me begin this blog by correcting an error I made in my previous "Softball Family" post. Ashland Avenue Baptist Church has never won the church league tournament before. We came oh so close, but lost in the final game to Southside Church of Christ to take 2nd place in the tournament. I apologize for you followers out there who noted my error.

Moving on......

The tournament came to a close late last night. Amidst one of the busiest weeks ever in the life of our church (Vacation Bible School week), our softball men have been cracking bats and making us proud.

They played Monday night in a late evening game that, I am told, was quite the nail biting game, with Ashland narrowly escaping defeat and coming out on top by one point. My wonderful softball hero caught the game ending out in the game Monday night. I missed it. I had to teach Foster Parent classes that night, so Jacob was home with Auntie Fred, Chris was at the ball park, and I was at work. Chris was pretty keyed up Monday night when he got home!

Last night, Jacob and I had to work the nursery at VBS. Again, our men were off making us proud on the softball diamond. They played game #1 at 8:00PM. If they won that game, they moved on to the tournament championship game at 9:00PM. As all the proud softball wives were bustling out of the church at the close of VBS around 8:40PM last night the buzz was all about whether or not anyone had received an update from their darling hubby as to what was going on in game #1. None had heard, so off we drove to the ball park (about 30 minutes from the church, unfortunately) hoping when we got there, we'd get to see our men play in the championship game.

Our hopes came true! I know very little of the details of game #1, but I do know what matters, and that is that they won! You can imagine we were quite the scraggly crew in the stands at 9:00PM. The majority of us had come straight to VBS from working all day, had attempted to shove food into the mouths of our children at some point in time in between events, and worked VBS from about 5:30PM till 8:40PM. Our kids were pooped, worn out, and totally overstimulated for one day! It was well past my child's bedtime when I pulled out of the parking lot of the church to go to the game, but it didn't matter. It isn't everyday that our softball heroes got to play in the tournament championship. So there we were, making some noise for our men, and praying this year we would know the excitement of victory, rather than the bitterness of defeat.

We started the game with a comfortable lead, but somewhere around the 4th or 5th inning, the opposing team started to pick up some steam, found a hole in our defense, and started to close the gap in the score. Needless to say, as our fears mounted of yet another year of being 2nd best and experiencing our first loss of the season in the tournament closer, we wives got LOUDER! Apparently that worked because our softball heroes stepped up to the plate, swung their bats, and made us proud....ending the game in the 6th inning with the mercy rule (a ten run lead!).

Go Ashland Avenue Baptist Church! You made your softball wives and families very proud! And yet again........I forgot my camera! I so hope one of the wives is kind enough to share copies of the photo she took with the men gathered proudly around their trophy!

Wish you all could have been there. Perhaps we take our softball just a wee bit too seriously at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church....but it sure is fun!!!!