Championship Day

I can't believe it has taken me so long to post about game day! Things have been kind of crazy around here. My in-laws came to town Friday to catch the big games, and then took the kids back with them yesterday, so things have not been normal.

Cade's game was supposed to start at 6:00 and Braden's at 7:45, but wouldn't you know it, a huge thunderstorm moved in at about 5:30. You would know, we haven't had rain for months and it decides to rain right then!! The games were delayed an hour, so we started at 7:00. Cade started pitching, but couldn't handle the pressure and broke down on the mound :( It was pretty pitiful. Very frustrating, as a mom, to watch. Our team struggled through the whole game and fought back, but lost by one run. We were very proud of them and they were given a trophy bat for being second place in the league. It was a tough game. Here are a couple pics of the team, before in their huddle and after with their trophy.

As soon as Cade's game finished, I ran (all out sprint) to the next field for Braden's game. Because of the rain delay, this game didn't start until 9:00. It was a VERY late night. The home plate umpire was a guy who had thrown Richard out of a game a few weeks ago for absolutely nothing. For whatever reason, he doesn't like Richard or our team, so I knew there would probably be fireworks at some point. Richard was very good at keeping his mouth shut, and the umpire did a pretty good job until it was the last inning and it looked like we were actually going to win. We were the home team and were in the field. There were two outs and we were up by 3. This umpire decided that he would start calling all of our pitches balls. It was so bad that Braden was catching and turning around to the guy asking where pitches were. They were all very frustrated. He continued to call balls until we had walked in the go ahead run. Finally, one of their players got out, by hitting the ball. When we came up to bat, the umpire then decided that balls thrown at the boys' ankles should be called strikes. It was completely unbelievable. Our boys fought so hard and one of them even hit a triple on a very high ball. They had to, the umpire was completely controlling the game. There were some fireworks, as promised, and a couple of our coaches were thrown out for complaining about the calls (not Richard. He didn't say a word), but our boys kept fighting. The other pitcher was so nervous (there was alot going on, in fact, my voice may never recover) he couldn't throw a strike. He ended up walking in the winning run because the pitches were so bad, there was no way the umpire could get away with calling them strikes.

We were so proud of our boys for not giving up and fighting every second. We are very disappointed in the ballpark for letting this happen. An umpire should never be allowed to do this. It was so bad that LSU's football coach, whose son was on the other team, came over and said it was the worst officiating he'd ever seen. I wrote a letter about it to the "bosses", but I'm sure the only good it did was to let me get it off my chest.

The good news: WE WON!!! As hard as that guy tried, he couldn't keep us down! Here are some pics of the "dogpile" and the whole team. They were very proud.

We didn't get home until midnight and the boys had to swim in the city meet the next morning. It was so hard waking them (and myself) up at 7:30 that next morning! They did it, though, and I'm proud of them.

They are with my in-laws for the week...what do I do now?