"Oh, thank God!"

Well, baseball has finally come to a close. We made the tournament, which was our goal after realizing that we were.... not good. We lost all three games in the tournament, but two of them were close, which was nice. The final game, we ride our ace pitcher through five innings, and we're tied at the end of five. But he's tired, and we know it, so we bring in our next best pitcher to try and get us through the sixth. He gives up a hit and a walk, gets one out, and we decide that in a tie game at the end of the last inning, we should walk the next batter, get the bases loaded, and have a force out at the plate. Then we decide that if we're going down, we're just gonna put our ace back in, even though he's tired, because he will still throw strikes. So Chris, the head coach goes out to the mound, and our number 2 pitcher looks at him and says, "Oh, thank God!" Yup, nothing like having a closer with the attitude of "Anyone but me coach. Please!"

So, my long season of misery is now over, and I'm feeling a little more relaxed now. Still stressed about not having a job, but at least I don't have the added stress of baseball as well. It was a frustrating season for sure, but more than anything else, I think I was frustrated because they just didn't care. While there is something to be said for kids who are just having fun playing a game, I've never been around kids who didn't care at all whether or not they won. When I was a kid, I never missed baseball. I skipped my great-grandmother's 100th birthday because I would have had to miss two games, one of which I was pitching in. Uh-uh, no way. My family all travelled back to Texas, and I stayed home by myself at age 13, because I was NOT going to miss a baseball game. Our final game, we had a kid miss to watch his sister's Jr. High graduation. Seriously?! Cost us too, as his replacement in the outfield watched two fly balls drop directly in front of him, without moving.

It was humbling, for sure, this season of hell. It is the first time in all the years that Chris and I have coached babe ruth baseball, either together or individually, that we didn't play for the title. We haven't always won it, but we've never finished below 2nd place until this year. I don't know if we'll do it again next year, but probably will only do so if we have an influx of talent to the program. I just don't think either of us is capable of handling another season like this one.

I suppose it says something about our talent as coaches that despite our 5-19 record for the year, that we had parents and other people in the NEBR program coming up to us and practically begging us to come back next year. We'll see how it turns out. For now, I'm simply going to relax and start enjoying my summer for a while.

"Oh, thank God!" indeed.